As the largest developer of processors for smartphones, Qualcomm can not but feel pressure from the antitrust authorities of individual countries. Most in this area made its mark Chinese regulators, who have long been trying to bargain for local manufacturers of smartphones specific license terms, and in the appendage to this pressure Qualcomm gets more and underestimated statistics from the manufacturers of the number of smartphones sold - so Chinese businessmen are trying to understate the amount of license fees on their own, without the support of government agencies. All this uncertainty is pressed on Qualcomm, and after the announcement of the measures taken the company's shares rose 1.6%, although the reasons for joy not so much.
As reported by Reuters, which lasted 14 months of investigation culminated in the verdict of the Chinese authorities on the payment of Qualcomm's largest fine in the history of the developer - $ 975 million. At the current rate. In addition, Qualcomm will be required to review the basis for calculating the license fee for the Chinese smartphone manufacturers, sells products on the local market. If the license fee for all others is determined by the size of the full cost of the smartphone, the products of Chinese brands "for internal use" will be assessed a 65% cost. Of course, it will give Chinese producers of certain advantages in the local market, although they already occupy a leading position on it.
Much worse is that this precedent will allow other countries to think about the need to bargain with Qualcomm for a similar "improvement" licensing terms. This can undermine the structure of the revenue of the American company that owns many patents in the field of mobile technologies. Qualcomm representatives expressed the hope that the US and Europe antimonopolschiki not follow the example of Chinese colleagues. By the way, Qualcomm now agrees to license the technologies of communication in 3G and 4G Chinese manufacturers without the "load" in the form of other licenses, as it did previously. Perhaps such a decision can be considered fair.