The company eventually came to rule large areas of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions. The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India. Originally chartered as the 'Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies', the company rose to account for half of the world's trade during the mid-1700s and early 1800s, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, sugar, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong after the First Opium War, and maintained trading posts and colonies in the Persian Gulf Residencies. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with Qing China.

The East India Company ( EIC), also known as the Honourable East India Company ( HEIC), East India Trading Company ( EITC), the English East India Company or (after 1707) the British East India Company, and informally known as John Company, Company Bahadur, or simply The Company, was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600.