Brussels, 08/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Commission authorised the plans of the Taiwanese group BenQ, a specialist in mass-market electronic equipment, to take over the mobile telephony activities of the German conglomerate Siemens. This operation will give rise to the world's fourth-largest producer of mobile telephones and China's largest mobile telephone company.
"The planned operation will have no negative effect on competition in the branded mobile telephones market", said the Commission, adding: "although Siemens enjoys relatively high market shares for its mobile telephony activities in some of the Member States, these will not be significantly increased by BenQ's purchase of it, as BenQ's presence on these markets is very limited". After the merger operation, BenQ will continue to be up against "powerful competitors, which are well established in Europe", such as Nokia or Samsung, it concluded.
Under the agreement signed with the German producer, BenQ will be able to use the Siemens mobile telephone brand for a period of five years, with activities remaining based at the Munich headquarters. BenQ is a former subsidiary of the technological group Acer. The Taiwanese group achieves 60% of its turnover on mobile telephones, but it does not produce these under its own brand. Its remaining activities include sales of a broad range of electronic products, portable computers, flat screens, digital cameras, scanners and CD ROM drives. By shedding its most well-known activity, which employs around 6000 people, "Siemens is reaping the rewards of its failure to compete with its main rivals, due to a lack of innovative products", an AFP press release states. Despite having been one of the pioneers of the sector, the group it is these days the only one of the first 10 companies to produce mobile telephones to lose money in this field.