Brussels, 24/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 24 July, the European Commission gave the go-ahead under the EU merger regulation to the planned acquisition of Franco-US company Alcatel-Lucent S.A by Finland's Nokia Corporation.
The European Commission concluded that the transaction would not raise competition concerns, in particular because the parties are not close competitors and since a number of strong global competitors will remain active after the transaction.
In the field of mobile network equipment, including Radio Access Network equipment (for connecting mobile devices to networks) and Core Network Systems (that for example route telephone calls and data traffic), the merged entity would have combined market shares of around or above 30% for several types of equipment, but the Commission says that the overlaps between the two companies' activities are effectively limited. Nokia has a strong presence in the European Economic Area, where Alcatel-Lucent is a small player, and conversely Alcatel-Lucent has a strong presence in North America, where Nokia's activities are rather limited.
Several other strong players are active on the market: Ericsson and Huawei, which together with Nokia are the main players in Europe, along with China's ZTE and South Korea's Samsung. Although ZTE and Samsung currently have small market shares, the Commission considered that those market shares do not fully reflect the competitive importance of their offerings. In particular, Samsung is expected to play a more significant role in the near future in relation to the newest generation mobile telecommunications equipment (4G, currently being deployed, and 5G). Finally, the Commission's investigation did not find that the transaction would make it harder for new or small players to enter and expand in the market, and the transaction would not significantly change the market structure to make coordination easier. (Mathieu Bion)