The European Commission has approved Finnish telecom equipment group Nokia’s planned buy of Alcatel-Lucent because the two were not close competitors.
It said the merged Fin-French outfit will still face shedloads of competition even if it will have combined market shares around or above 30 percent for several specific types of equipment.
“The overlaps between the two companies’ activities are effectively limited,” the Commission said in a statement.
Nokia had a strong presence in Europe, where Alcatel-Lucent was small, with the positions reversed in North America.
Nokia launched its all-share deal then worth 15.6 billion euros to buys its smaller French rival in April. The move is seen as the company building up its telecom equipment business to compete with market leader Ericsson.
The merged group is smaller than the son of Eric, but bigger than Chinese rival Huawei’s and ZTE.
