July 27 (NBD) -- The U.S. semiconductor and telecommunications equipment firm Qualcomm officially terminated  the planned acquisition of Dutch counterpart NXP on Thursday, ending a 20-month wait for antitrust approvals.

After the deal failed to be approved by Chinese authorities, Qualcomm finally decided to give up its merger plan, though the takeover had been approved in eight other jurisdictions, including the European Union and South Korea. 

The semiconductor giant has to pay 2 billion U.S. dollars as breakup fee and it would proceed with a stock buyback of up to 30 billion U.S. dollars that it had promised shareholders should the NXP deal fall apart. NXP also announced Thursday that it would buy back shares worth 5 billion U.S. dollars.

Qualcomm first offered to buy Netherlands-based NXP for about 38 billion U.S. dollars in October 2016, which was rejected by some shareholders of NXP. In February this year, the American firm even upped its bid to 44 billion U.S. dollars. 

Known as one of the leading semiconductor manufacturers, Qualcomm grabbed more than 25 percent of the global smartphone chip market. 

According to Qualcomm's annual report of 2017, the company posted revenue of 22.29 billion U.S. dollars last year, down from 23.55 billion U.S. dollars of 2016. Qualcomm has suffered serious decline of net profits since the second quarter of 2015.

As the company's net profits are largely contributed by QTL (Qualcomm Technology Licensing) business, the falling QTL earnings due to antitrust fines from several countries resulted in a slow growth of Qualcomm's overall revenue net profits.

The report also revealed that Qualcomm's revenue from its business in the emerging areas such as automobile and Internet of things (IoT) amounted to more than 3 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for about 13 percent of the total earnings.

Facing great challenge in the semiconductor market, the U.S. firm is seeking for further expansion in other domains.

Founded in 1953 as part of the electronics firm Philips, NYP was spun off from Philips in 2006. The company now has become the biggest automotive semiconductor maker, which provides products and solutions in the fields including automotive electronics, smart recognition, family entertainment, mobile communications and semiconductor for multiple markets. Data from research firm Gartner show that NYP is holding 11 percent of market share in the global automotive semiconductor market.

The acquisition deal was expected to enable Qualcomm to tap automotive electronics, identification, radio frequency and other sectors. 

Steve Mollenkopf, CEO of the U.S. semiconductor company, said that Qualcomm's mobile system on a chip (SoC) and technology roadmap can be combined with NXP's industrial distribution channels, as well as advantages in automotive electronics, security and IoT.

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn