The Korea Fair Trade Commission believes that Qualcomm restricts or forces customers to use the baseband chips of competitors through its own technology and market advantages, while charging some manufacturers additional fees. Korean regulators have been conducting antitrust investigations on Qualcomm since 2014. Yesterday, the Korea Fair Trade Commission announced that it would fine Qualcomm 1.03 trillion won (about 5.76 billion yuan).

Last year, Qualcomm was fined 6.1 billion yuan by the China Development and Reform Commission, also because of antitrust. At present, Qualcomm is not convinced by the result of such punishment and is ready to appeal further. In addition to South Korea and China, the EU and Taiwan also conducted antitrust investigations against Qualcomm. South Korea fined 5.76 billion yuan and China fined 6.1 billion yuan, which is a very large amount. However, it is not very harmful to Qualcomm. Qualcomm's revenue in 2016 reached 23 billion dollars (about 160 billion yuan), while patent licensing revenue accounted for 34% (54.4 billion yuan). We should know that the process of antitrust investigation is usually very long, The investigation alone will take about 2 years, and once the result is settled, the fine can be further delayed through appeal.