Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The EU is concerned about the concentration in the sector of hard disks

The European Commission will investigate the concentration in the hard drives because it is concerned about the competitive effects of the projects of two Asian groups to sell their work in this field to American competitors. Specifically, the Commission, guardian of competition in Europe, announced Monday, May 30, the opening of thorough investigations on two acquisition projects.

The U.S. Seagate Technology has announced its intention to repurchase $ 1.4 billion (971 million euros) the activities of South Korea's Samsung Electronics in the hard drives while Western Digital intends to do the same with those of Japanese Hitachi for $ 4.3 billion (2.98 billion euros).

"Both transactions raise concerns for potential competition," said Brussels in a statement that evokes a risk reduction of sources of hard disks, especially for manufacturers of computer hardware independent external storage. ONLY FIVE MANUFACTURERS The Commission stresses that there is now only five manufacturers of hard drives in Tech News Buzz: Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, Samsung and Toshiba.

According to data provided at the time, both anticipated transactions are expected to Western Digital to increase its global market share to nearly 50%, while Seagate would increase his 32% to 40%. "Hard drives are the backbone of the digital economy," said European Commissioner for Competition, Joaquin Almunia.

The opening of a full investigation does not prejudge the final decision from Brussels: the Commission will know by October 10 if it allows or if it blocks both agreements.

No comments:

Post a Comment