Fair Trade Commission to Expedite Review of SK Hynix's Intel NAND Flash Acquisition and Other Mergers

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has decided to expedite the review of three major semiconductor business mergers, including SK Hynix's acquisition of Intel's NAND flash business division.

On the 21st, the KFTC announced that it has received five merger notifications related to the restructuring of the global semiconductor market and is currently reviewing them, having already approved two of the cases.

The KFTC approved Analog Devices' acquisition of Maxim Integrated, considering that there are strong competitors in the relevant market and the market share increase is not significant at 6 percentage points, concluding there is no concern over competition restriction. Additionally, the acquisition of Siltronic shares by GlobalWafers was approved as the merged company would hold a 28% market share, ranking second, but the gap with the first and third largest players is within 5 percentage points each, indicating that competition in the market will continue.

The KFTC is currently reviewing SK Hynix's acquisition of Intel's NAND flash business division, AMD's merger with Xilinx, and NVIDIA's acquisition of ARM shares.

A KFTC official stated, "We will conduct the merger reviews as swiftly as possible to ensure that the restructuring of the semiconductor market is not hindered. For mergers that may restrict competition, we will carefully analyze their potential impact on the relevant markets before making a decision."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.