In the morning I told you that Apple would have been forced by Qualcomm to use its modems in the iPhone terminals released on the market between 2011 and 2014. The accusations are made by an American government agency, which initiated a lawsuit against those from Qualcomm, accusing them of having done the same with other manufacturers, thus inhibiting competition and the possibility of competitors to sell their products.
Now we learn that in the agreements with Apple, those from Qualcomm would have offered discounts of several billion dollars for their products to be used in the iPhone and iPad. More precisely, Apple would have received discounts of billions of dollars on modems if it had only used Qualcomm products in the iPhone and iPad terminals launched between 2011 and 2013 on the market.
These discounts would have partially covered the sums of money that Apple would have had to pay to license Qualcomm's technologies by using its modems in the iPhone and iPad. Basically, Qualcomm wanted exclusivity in the iPhone and iPad regarding its modems, but these agreements would have stretched from 2011 until 2016, Apple being obliged to buy only Qualcomm modems.
Now the authorities consider that Qualcomm made a serious mistake with the way it acted, several competitors having problems in selling their products and developing because of this. Those from Intel still managed to break the link between Apple and Qualcomm in 2016, and it could expand in 2017 to other products.
"In all, Qualcomm's 2011 and 2013 agreements with Apple provided for billions of dollars in conditional rebates from Qualcomm to Apple. Under these agreements, Qualcomm provided Apple large lump sum payments that constituted partial relief from Qualcomm royalties. Qualcomm conditioned this relief on Apple's exclusive use of Qualcomm baseband processors in new iPhone and iPad models."
