Qualcomm hurls insults at Apple in response to lawsuit

Written by Jamie Davies
26/01/2017 @ 16:34

Qualcomm has hit back at the two complaints Apple has filed against the chipmaker in Beijing, accusing the tech giant of being cheap.

The lawsuit is seeking damages of £115 million, with the Apple legal team claiming Qualcomm has abused its dominant market position to charge more. One of the complaints alleges a violation of China’s Anti-Monopoly Law, and the other requests a determination of the terms of a patent license between Qualcomm and Apple for Qualcomm’s cellular standard essentials patents.

“These filings by Apple’s Chinese subsidiary are just part of Apple’s efforts to find ways to pay less for Qualcomm’s technology,” said Don Rosenberg, EVP and General Counsel of Qualcomm.

“Apple was offered terms consistent with terms accepted by more than one hundred other Chinese companies and refused to even consider them. These terms were consistent with our NDRC Rectification plan.

“Qualcomm is prepared to defend its business model anywhere in the world. We are proud of our history of contributing our inventions to the development and success of the mobile communications ecosystem.”

This latest Apple drama follows an equivalent filing in the US and a similar tussle with the US Federal Trade Commission, which has also accused Qualcomm of using its market position in a nefarious manner.

The news will put a bit of a dampener on a day which has seen Qualcomm report fairly healthy results for the quarter ending December 25. For Q4, the team brought in revenues of $6 billion, a 4% year-on-year increase, but is giving itself a wide berth for the next quarter, forecasting revenues between $5.5 billion and $6.3 billion.

“We are pleased with the strong start to our fiscal year and the year-over-year earnings growth across both our semiconductor and licensing businesses,” said CEO Steve Mollenkopf. “Looking ahead, the pending NXP acquisition accelerates our strategic transformation in the high growth areas of automotive, IoT, security and networking. We are very well positioned to lead as the semiconductor engine for the intelligent, connected world.”