Qualcomm is under investigation by the European Union's antitrust authority, which suspects the company of abusing its dominant position in the market for 3G and 4G chipsets used in smartphones and tablets.
The European Commission has initiated proceedings against Qualcomm in two investigations, it said Thursday. The first concerns whether Qualcomm breached EU antitrust rules by offering financial incentives to phone manufacturers on condition that they buy chipsets exclusively, or mostly, from the company; the second, whether Qualcomm engaged in predatory pricing, selling below cost to force competitors out of the market.
Mobile processors and baseband chipsets, which handle the communications protocols used in wireless networks, form a significant proportion of the cost of a mobile phone and, at least at the low end of the market, margins are getting thinner, leaving phonemakers more vulnerable to pricing pressures from their suppliers.
The EU Commissioner in charge of competition policy, Margrethe Vestager, said "We are launching these investigations because we want to be sure that high tech suppliers can compete on the merits of their products. Many customers use electronic devices such as a mobile phone or a tablet and we want to ensure that they ultimately get value for money. Effective competition is the best way to stimulate innovation."
Qualcomm's business practices have come under antitrust authorities' scrutiny before. Earlier this year, Chinese regulators fined Qualcomm $975 million for overcharging device makers there.
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Qualcomm said it had been notified that the Commission had initiated proceedings against it in the two ongoing investigations. It will continue to cooperate with the Commission, but believes the concerns are without merit, it said.
More coverage of this story can be found at The Register and ITWorld.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @04:53PM
There, I think that's what you meant.
In the last three months they've brought charges against Qualcomm, Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook.
It's funny, if you look at the Competition Commission's news page [europa.eu], you see lots of "approves" and "deal cleared" for EU company actions (mergers, etc.), and lots of investigations into non-EU companies. At what point do you say there is something to this pattern that goes beyond the law?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @05:02PM
The EU companies can't compete so the commission has to punish the US companies for being too successful.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Thursday July 16 2015, @05:14PM
Can you give some examples of European competitors to these companies, which the EU might be protecting? I don't see this happening with say, car companies or Boeing, where the EU does have prominent competitors, but maybe it's just that the European Amazon or Google competitor is not so well known?