Qualcomm’s proposed acquisition of Dutch NFC pioneer NXP Semiconductors has been approved by China’s antitrust authorities after twenty months’ worth of regulatory scrutiny, Bloomberg reports, citing sources with knowledge of the development. Originally announced in October of 2016, the deal has been reviewed by competition watchdogs from all parts of the world, with China being the last to finally approve it. In the meantime, Qualcomm extended its bid on numerous occasions, raised it as a defensive mechanism it resorted to following a hostile takeover attempt made by Broadcom, and refiled its consolidation paperwork with Beijing.
Its final bid amounts to some $44 billion and ended up being involved in Washington’s power struggle with China over trade. After President Trump extended a helping hand to China’s ZTE and returned the company into business following crippling sanctions imposed on it by the U.S. Commerce Department, Qualcomm said it’s hoping that development will pave the way for its own dealings with the Far Eastern country to come to a successful conclusion as well. The largest acquisition in the history of the San Diego, California-based chipmaker was first announced alongside a promise that it will be wrapped up by the end of 2017, with the prolonged nature of its path to regulatory approval annoying a significant portion of investors to the point that they were prepared to sell to Broadcom whose hostile takeover bid was gaining traction until President Trump blocked it earlier this year.
Qualcomm has yet to confirm China’s approval of the NXP bid in an official capacity. The tie-up will allow the firm to diversify its operations into automotive chips and IoT applications, thus reducing its dependence on smartphone technologies, a field where its revenues are likely to drop moving forward as more major clients such as Apple continue pushing against what they deem are unfair patent licensing practices.