In a significant development, Qualcomm offered concessions to regulators in Europe to sooth antitrust concerns over its $38-billion acquisition bid for NXP Semiconductors.
The acquisition deal by the U.S. smartphone chipmakers is the largest ever in the semiconductor industry.
As per a filing on the European Commission’s site, Qualcomm’s concessions had been submitted to European antitrust authorities on October 5. Details of its concessions are yet unknown.
Qualcomm supplies its chips to Android smartphone makers as well as to Apple.
On August 17, the European Commission had, for a second time, suspended the deadline for its decision vis-a-vis this deal saying it was awaiting more information from Qualcomm; it had said, a new deadline would be set once the company complies with its request.
With Qualcomm now submitting the required information, the European Commission is expected to seek feedback from customers and rivals in the coming days to ease its concerns that the U.S. chipmaker could use incentives as a ploy to squeeze out rivals and raise prices; the Commission is also concerned about changes Qualcomm may bring about in NXP’s intellectual property licensing model.
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