Huawei, ZTE face EU 'illegal state subsidies' probe

Summary: Huawei and ZTE could face having to pay extra to import their products into the European Union, after regulators said they had gathered solid evidence that China had been subsidising them.Representatives from the EU's 27 member states were told by officials on Thursday in a closed-door meeting that the European Commission had amassed "very solid evidence" of illegal state subsidies of the companies, the The Financial Times reported on Friday.

By Jack Clark for Mapping Babel | May 28, 2012 -- 10:10 GMT (03:10 PDT)

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Huawei and ZTE could face having to pay extra to import their products into the European Union, after regulators said they had gathered solid evidence that China had been subsidising them.

Representatives from the EU's 27 member states were told by officials on Thursday in a closed-door meeting that the European Commission had amassed "very solid evidence" of illegal state subsidies of the companies, the The Financial Times reported on Friday.

The officials were also told the Commission had gathered evidence that indicated the companies had sold products in the EU below cost.

EU state representatives who were in the meeting told the FT a case could be brought against China as soon as next month.

If the case determines China was acting illegally, Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese companies could face extra costs on selling their products in the European Union.

Topic: Storage

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If ZTE have been selling below cost with the ZTE Blade / Orange San Francisco then given the current high street price of the Nokia Lumia 710, you could conclude MS/Nokia are doing the same in their desperate attempt to gain market share for WP7. At £129 PAYG it must come very close, given its internal specifications.

EU Regulators should force MS to separate Win RT / Windows Classic in Windows 8, to be sold separately (but allow them to be installed together if a customer decides this option).

Win RT is effectively the IE Browser. However MS package 'the browser', if that package (WinRT) imposes limitations preventing competiton from competing at that 'packaged level', then the packaged browser shouldn't be included as an integral component of Windows Classic. EU should force WinRT should be sold separately to form its own organic market share, not off the back of Windows Classic Desktop.