Korea’s antitrust regulator said Friday that it had launched a deliberation on U.S. search giant Google’s recent acquisition of Motorola Mobility, to decide whether the merger would undermine market competition.

The California-based company filed on Tuesday for Korean clearance to complete the $12.5 billion deal announced in August, according to the Fair Trade Commission.

“The purchase is expected to affect the nation’s smartphone market, including local handset makers Samsung and LG,” said Lee Dong-won, a FTC official.

“Part of the investigation will focus on the possibility that Google could provide its Android operating system exclusively to Motorola or limit the access of its rival companies,” he said.

Google’s purchase of Motorola, which holds some 17,000 patents, has raised antitrust concerns regarding smartphones and mobile search globally.

In order to review the highly publicized deal, the FTC said it would seek to work with authorities in the United States and European Union, where the case is under investigation as well.

“Even though each country may have different interests in protecting the right of local consumers and businesses, we have worked together on such an international case,” Lee said.

According to a related law here, the Korean authorities must decide whether to clear the transaction within 120 days when an acquisition case is reported for regulatory permission.

According to U.S. market analyst Strategy Analytics report, about 110 million people globally are thought to use a smartphone as of the second quarter this year.

Google’s Android dominates 43.4 percent of the mobile operating system market, followed by Nokia’s Symbian with 22.1 percent and Apple’s iOS with 18.2 percent.

With the big three players Apple, Samsung Electronics and Nokia dominate more than half the global smartphone market, the share for Motorola remains at about 4 percent.

Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, said early October on his visit to Seoul that the Motorola purchase would not hurt the company’s partnerships with other handset makers.

“We will run (Motorola) sufficiently and independently in a way that will not violate Android’s openness. We are not going to change in any material way the way we operate,” he said.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)