Americans maybe aren’t used to thinking in terms of conglomerates because there are only a handful of visible ones here but conglomerates are pretty common all

Americans maybe aren’t used to thinking in terms of conglomerates because there are only a handful of visible ones here but conglomerates are pretty common all over Asia where a single company has holding in a diverse number of industries (eg Samsung cars, Hyundai real estate etc). There are structural reasons for the existence of conglomerates outside of diversification and expansion into adjacent markets. I think your last statement is debatable (that it doesn’t benefit consumers). It really depends — we assume that conglomerate companies will bulldoze the competition with impunity because they’re cross subsidized but in real life this isn’t always true especially if one takes a global view instead of a domestic one.