E.U. antitrust regulators impose a fine on Qualcomm for advancing its exclusive microchip deal with Apple.

Fiona Sydney

2018-01-17 05:30:00 Wed ET

European Union antitrust regulators impose a fine on Qualcomm for advancing its key exclusive microchip deal with Apple to block out rivals such as Intel and TSMC. The European Commission takes into account Qualcomm's multi-year dominance in the LTE microchip market with rapid mobile broadband connections. In recent times, Qualcomm attempts to force Apple and its Asian upstream suppliers to use its trademark microchips exclusively in return for lower licensing fees.

Qualcomm can thus unfairly cut out intense competition in the LTE chipset market. In fact, Qualcomm pays billions of U.S. dollars to Apple such that it would not buy from other microchip producers.

These payments represent not just price reductions, but the primary condition that Apple would exclusively use Qualcomm's baseband chipsets in all its iPhones and iPads. Several other smart phone rivals such as Lenovo, OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi express an active interest in buying $2 billion Qualcomm chipsets over 3 years. No microchip rivals would be able to effectively challenge Qualcomm in this particular market regardless of product quality improvements.

The European Commission thus has to penalize Qualcomm for its anti-competitive market behavior. This E.U. regulatory decision has deep economic implications for Apple and other mobile device suppliers and manufacturers worldwide.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

The world seeks to reduce medicine prices and other health care costs to better regulate big pharma.

Daisy Harvey

2019-06-07 04:02:05 Friday ET

The world seeks to reduce medicine prices and other health care costs to better regulate big pharma.

The world seeks to reduce medicine prices and other health care costs to better regulate big pharma. Nowadays the Trump administration requires pharmaceutic

+See More

Dr Chip Espinoza recommends 9 new core competences for better managing millennials in the modern workplace.

Rose Prince

2025-08-02 13:31:00 Saturday ET

Dr Chip Espinoza recommends 9 new core competences for better managing millennials in the modern workplace.

Chip Espinoza, Mick Ukleja, and Craig Rusch shine fresh light on the core competences for managing millennials as part of the new modern workforce in recent

+See More

Ford and Baidu team up to test autonomous cars in China.

Jonah Whanau

2018-11-01 08:36:00 Thursday ET

Ford and Baidu team up to test autonomous cars in China.

Ford and Baidu team up to test autonomous cars in China. For the next few years, Ford and Baidu plan to collaborate on the car design and user acceptance te

+See More

President Trump's current trade policies appear like the Reagan administration's protectionist trade policies back in the 1980s.

Apple Boston

2018-07-03 11:42:00 Tuesday ET

President Trump's current trade policies appear like the Reagan administration's protectionist trade policies back in the 1980s.

President Trump's current trade policies appear like the Reagan administration's protectionist trade policies back in the 1980s. In comparison to th

+See More

Berkeley macro economist Brad DeLong sees no good reasons for an imminent economic recession with mass unemployment and even depression.

Laura Hermes

2019-11-21 11:34:00 Thursday ET

Berkeley macro economist Brad DeLong sees no good reasons for an imminent economic recession with mass unemployment and even depression.

Berkeley macro economist Brad DeLong sees no good reasons for an imminent economic recession with mass unemployment and even depression. The current U.S. ec

+See More

Corporate ownership governance theory and practice

Monica McNeil

2022-04-25 10:34:00 Monday ET

Corporate ownership governance theory and practice

Corporate ownership governance theory and practice  The genesis of modern corporate governance and ownership studies traces back to the seminal work

+See More