A study on market power in mobile service market

Abstract

From now on, posing a problem to the Fair Trade Commission``s merger judgment decision which gave contingency approval to the merger between SK Telecom and Shinsegi Telecom Inc.(STI) on the condition that they should lower their market share under 50% after merger, we discussed the desirable direction of regulation policy concerning asymmetric regulation or business merger in the mobile market in Korea by reviewing the market power in telecommunications market focused on mobile market. The asymmetric regulation in telecommunications market including the mobile market comes to have an influence on the criteria of business merger judgment. It implies that whether the standard of market share level considered to be important in deciding the market power is decisive criterion or not should be carefully put into consideration. Therefore, focusing on the theoretical view concerning asymmetric regulation and merger as well as the cases of antitrust division of DoJ, FTC, FCC, Oftel in UK, and ACCC in Australia, the criteria of each nation``s regulatory bodies on the market power regarding merger have been explained. And on the basis of these criteria, individual decision about the market power has been explained focusing the domestic merger between SK Telecom and STI as well as each nation``s merger cases. In case of the merger between SK Telecom and STI, though they get more market share after merger, whether they can raise charge and whether they can do anti-competitive behaviour under the present regulation system have been emphasized. In that case, it is concluded that they cannot do any abusive behaviour regarding the market power under the present regulatory regime. The noticeable facts about asymmetric regulation and decision on market power in major nations are that they judge a merger from various angles, they are converting from pre-regulation to post-regulation, they emphasize efficiency-raising aspect after merger, and they judge a merger to the direction...