But Wang said the venture investment could be a gesture from Qualcomm to please the government.

Mollenkopf underlined the company's decadelong relationship with the Chinese government at the fundlaunching event in Beijing.

Qualcomm probed for price-fixing in China

Qualcomm to sell its first China-specific chips this year

Qualcomm has a long list of local buyers in China: Xiaomi, Lenovo Group and Huawei Technologies are among the top Qualcomm chip users.

The incident is set to give Qualcomm's competitors a chance to take some market share from lower-end market.

Intel Corp, Huawei and Taiwan-based MediaTek are all eyeing Qualcomm's share in China.

Beijing has decided to gradually shake dependence on overseas made electronics.

The State Council introduced a fund last month in a bid to boost local chip innovation and manufacturing.

Legal and regulatory barriers may lead the US chip giant to lose ground in China where demand for chips supporting 4G telecom technologies is surging.

A total of 120 million 4G-enabled smartphones will be shipped in China, and overall smartphone shipments are on track to break 450 million, research firm IDC estimated.

Chinese vendors have about 70 percent of the domestic cellphone market.