Your friends own a lawn care business. They own their own equipment and trailers to transport it. Eventually they buy out another local lawn care company and double their customers. This is an example of

1. ending an oligopoly2. creating an oligopoly3. vertical consolidation4. horizontal consolidation

4. Horizontal consolidation

Explanation:

Horizontal consolidation is a process in which the companies which are producing the same or similar goods or providing the similar or same services merges together or one company gets acquired by the other company.

Sometimes Horizontal consolidation may lead to a risk of one company becoming a monopoly.

But Horizontal consolidation also sometimes benefits the customers by reducing the prices because of the large economic scale.