Qualcomm is the world's chip leader, founded in 1985, with more than 7.5 billion chips sold. Most of China's mobile phones use Qualcomm's chips. With the development of artificial intelligence (AI), Qualcomm is more like a fisherman. At that time, Qualcomm's market value exceeded 100 billion US dollars. And the Dutch NXP, which she wants to acquire, is a company that was spun off by Philips. In the semiconductor market in the fields of automobiles and homes, it has great advantages. The market value once rushed to 40 billion. US dollar. The merger of two companies, can be said to be a giant marriage.
However, due to the sales of the two companies, facing the world, to be merged, it is necessary to obtain the unanimous consent of the regulatory authorities including the United States, the European Union, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.
Qualcomm proposed the acquisition of NXP in 10 years in 2016. The initial purchase price was US$38 billion. NXP’s shareholders were unmoved. Qualcomm finally raised its price to US$44 billion and promised to pay for NXP’s more than US$10 billion debt. The two giants will naturally form a monopoly in the chip industry. Qualcomm originally thought that the most difficult thing to pass was the EU's anti-monopoly investigation, and it repeatedly made concessions to the EU. For example, after committing the acquisition, it will continue to provide NXP MIFARE technology within eight years. After Qualcomm finally obtained the consent of the eight countries, it was only China.
Since Qualcomm's acquisition has dragged on for a long time, it has already smashed a bite in the middle of the journey. It is also one of the top ten semiconductor companies, Broadcom (acquired by Angola of Singapore in 2016, becoming a US company controlled by Singapore) , bidding $130 billion, to acquire Qualcomm. In order to please President Trump, Broadcom even promised to move its headquarters to the United States immediately. But it was still opposed by Trump on the grounds that Broadcom’s acquisition of Qualcomm would harm the United States. Security, in other words, the US chip giant, can not be controlled by other countries.
After Qualcomm kicked away Cheng Jinjin, it continued to promote NXP's acquisition. But after entering the third and fourth of this year, the situation turned sharply. Trump opened a trade war with China, and China has not approved Qualcomm's acquisition application. Qualcomm The "dead line" was postponed and finally pushed to July 25, but China still disagreed, and the trade was completely finished in this century.
Some people say that China's opposition to Qualcomm's acquisition of NXP is unreasonable. Trump's rejection of Broadcom's acquisition of Qualcomm may endanger national security. Since the ZTE incident, everyone has discovered that as long as the US government orders, it can ban the United States. Chip companies supply chips to China. If China agrees to Qualcomm's acquisition of European company NXP, if there is another US ban, even NXP can't sell chips to China. Does this harm China's national security?
The Qualcomm acquisition event shows that the world has long been globalized. It is a pattern in which you have me and me. If the United States wants to fight a trade war and force China to fight, the last thing is that you are calling me, I am calling you, to everyone. No benefit.
Bus: Lu Yongxiong