Chinese regulators might fine Qualcomm Inc more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion) following an investigation into alleged antitrust violations, the state-run Securities Times newspaper reported.
Qualcomm would likely be punished in the next few days, the newspaper said, citing people it did not identify. The Securities Times also cited Xu Kunlin (許昆林), head of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) anti-monopoly division, as saying that the penalty might be several times bigger than all similar fines the agency imposed last year.
Qualcomm, the largest maker of smartphone chips, has been the subject of an NDRC probe since November 2013. A fine of that size would mark a record as China investigates the practices of foreign companies, including technology and automobile firms.
Hou Mingjuan, a spokeswoman for Qualcomm in China, could not immediately be reached by telephone and did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment. The NDRC did not respond to a faxed request for comment.
Qualcomm is likely to pay China about US$1 billion, after the US chipmaker and the regulator made significant progress during talks last week, Reuters reported yesterday, citing a source familiar with the matter. Qualcomm might also lower its royalty rates by about a third on patents used in China, the report said.
The company said in November last year that sales and profits for this year would be hurt by the fallout from the Chinese government probe.
Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reported in December last year that China wants Qualcomm to accept lower royalty payments for technology used by domestic smartphone manufacturers. Qualcomm was pushing back against China’s attempt to amend its business model out of concern it could lead to changes in other countries, the people said.
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