QUALCOMM FINED $ 1.23BN FOR ABUSE

Brussels, Jan. 24: U. S. chipmaker Qualcomm was hit with a $ 1.23 billion fine by EU antitrust regulators on Wednesday for paying Apple to only use its chips, blocking out its rivals.

The European Commission said its investigation, launched in 2015, covered the period from 2011 to 2016 and took into account Qualcomm’s market dominance in LTE baseband chipsets, which enable rapid mobile broadband connections.

“Qualcomm paid billions of US dollars to a key customer, Apple, so that it would not buy from rivals. These payments were not just reductions in price – they were made on the condition that Apple would exclusively use Qualcomm’s baseband chipsets in all its iPhones and iPads,” European competition c o m m i s s i o n e r Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

“This meant that no rival could effectively challenge Qualcomm in this market, no matter how good their products were,” she said.

The fine represented 4.9 per cent of the company’s 2017 turnover, the commission said.

Qualcomm said it would appeal the commission’s decision immediately.

“We have a strong case for judicial review and we will immediately commence that process,” the group’s general counsel Don Rosenberg said in a statement, adding the company believed its agreement with Apple did not violate EU rules.

Qualcomm’s shares fell as much as 5 per cent in pre- market trading, but recovered briefly before the market opened to a 1.2 per cent drop at $ 67.50.