Yahoo and LINE management integration Focus such as share of smartphone settlement

Yahoo and LINE management integration Focus, such as share of smartphone payments FTC November 20, 16:17

Regarding the integration of IT giants Yahoo and LINE, the Fair Trade Commission will examine whether there are any problems with the Antimonopoly Act. In particular, the focus will be on how to make decisions regarding the growing domestic market share in the field of smartphone payments and the handling of huge amounts of data such as purchase history.

At the press conference on the 20th, Mr. Yamada of the Fair Trade Commission said about the business integration between Z Holdings and LINE, a holding company of Yahoo Japan. “In general terms, what kind of business is competing to what extent? After receiving notifications from both companies, the policy was to examine whether there are any problems with the Antimonopoly Act.

In particular, in the field of smartphone QR code payments, the total number of users, including “PayPay” and “LINEEPay” handled by Yahoo, etc., is 56 million, and the domestic market share is expected to increase rapidly.

For this reason, the review is expected to examine whether the competition between the two companies will distort the competitive environment, and whether the enormous amount of data such as purchases and payment history will be enclosed to hinder the business of other companies.

The Fair Trade Commission has a policy to deal strictly with mergers and acquisitions to monopolize data, as a huge IT company represented by GAFA has strengthened its power using huge amounts of customer data. Judging the management integration of Yahoo and LINE seems to be the test.