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for raki and gin and that Mey İçki will significantly lessen the compe-
tition in the market by strengthening its dominant position through this
acquisition.
Determination of the Relevant Market
Relevant Product Market
A relevant product market means a market which includes all those
products and/or services, which are regarded as interchangeable or
substitutable by the consumer by reason of the products’ characteris-
tics, prices and their intended use. Hence, in determining the relevant
product market, the interchangeability or substitutability of the prod-
ucts and/or services by the consumer is taken into account.
Within this scope, the Board has first determined that HDDs are
used in different areas such as “desktop applications”, mobile applica-
tions” and “products produced within the scope of consumers’ elec-
tronics”. Nevertheless, since the HDDs as a whole constitute the object
of the acquisition, the Board does not take into consideration these dif-
ferences in the usage, and regards the HDDs as a whole, specifying the
relevant product market as “all HDD products”.
Relevant Geographic Market
A relevant geographic market means an area in which the undertak-
ings are active in the supply and demand of products or services and in
which the conditions of competition are sufficiently homogeneous and
which can be easily disassociated from neighboring areas especially
because competitions conditions are sensibly different from there.
Within this scope, even though the Board considered that the rele-
vant geographical market shall be considered globally for reasons such
as the structures of prices and demands, the Board has determined the
relevant geographical market as “Turkey” since it has determined that
the Turkish market’s structure is different from other markets.
Test of Dominant Position
The Board has expressed that a market share superior to 50% may
reveal, save for certain exceptional cases, the existence of dominant
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NEWSLETTER 2012