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

USPTO fintech patent protection and accreditation

Andy Yeh Alpha

2023-01-03 09:34:00 Tuesday ET

USPTO fintech patent protection and accreditation

  USPTO fintech patent protection and accreditation   As of early-January 2023, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has approved

+See More

The new antitrust enforcement paradigm

Joseph Corr

2023-10-14 10:32:00 Saturday ET

The new antitrust enforcement paradigm

Jonathan Baker frames the current debate over antitrust merger review and enforcement in America. Jonathan Baker (2019)   The antitrust paradi

+See More

Apple is now the world's biggest dividend payer with its $13 billion dividend payout.

Dan Rochefort

2017-04-19 17:37:00 Wednesday ET

Apple is now the world's biggest dividend payer with its $13 billion dividend payout.

Apple is now the world's biggest dividend payer with its $13 billion dividend payout and surpasses ExxonMobil's dividend payout record. Despite the

+See More

Most lean enterprises should facilitate the dual transformation of both core assets with steady cash flows and new growth options.

John Fourier

2020-06-10 10:35:00 Wednesday ET

Most lean enterprises should facilitate the dual transformation of both core assets with steady cash flows and new growth options.

Most lean enterprises should facilitate the dual transformation of both core assets with fresh cash flows and new growth options. Scott Anthony, Clark Gi

+See More

Amazon faces E.U. antitrust scrutiny over the current e-commerce use of merchant data.

Olivia London

2019-08-16 17:37:00 Friday ET

Amazon faces E.U. antitrust scrutiny over the current e-commerce use of merchant data.

Amazon faces E.U. antitrust scrutiny over the current e-commerce use of merchant data. The European Commission probes into whether Amazon uses key third-par

+See More

Partisanship matters more than the socioeconomic influence of the rich and elite interest groups.

John Fourier

2019-08-26 11:30:00 Monday ET

Partisanship matters more than the socioeconomic influence of the rich and elite interest groups.

Partisanship matters more than the socioeconomic influence of the rich and elite interest groups. This new trend emerges from the recent empirical analysis

+See More