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EU fines Qualcomm $272 million for pricing tricks

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BRUSSELS: The European Union’s executive has fined US mobile phone parts supplier Qualcomm 242 million euros ($272 million) for engaging in predatory price practices to wipe out one of its competitors.


EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said ON Thursday that Qualcomm had abused its dominant global market position and sold its baseband chipsets, used to connect mobile devices to the Internet,”at a price below cost to key customers with the intention of eliminating a competitor.”


After years of investigation, the European Commission concluded that between 2009 and 2011, the company sold a number of its Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) chipsets at a price lowerthan production costs to producers Huawei and ZTE, with the intention of stopping rival Icera from increasing its own market share.


At that time, Qualcomm dominated the third generation (3G) UMTS market, with a share of close to 60 per cent, the commission added.


Icera first flagged the practices to the commission, which acts as the EU’s competition watchdog, back in 2009.


— dpa


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