If Huawei’s overseas 5G business had not suffered unprecedented targeted suppression, Nokia’s 5G product line would have most likely replicated its mobile phone business, given that it had completely lost the competition at the technical level. That downward curve.
In 2019, Nokia’s financial report showed that its communications business was not progressing smoothly and its profit margins were under tremendous pressure. It had no choice but to choose not to pay dividends in this fiscal year. This is disastrous for a listed company. This is because Nokia has been seriously lagging behind in innovation and input-output, so that it is technically unable to compete with Huawei, Samsung and even Japanese communications companies.
In fiscal year 2019, Huawei’s R&D investment was more than twice that of second-place Nokia. It was precisely because of the obvious advantages of 5G technology that Huawei was blocked. Nokia and Ericsson, which were gradually invaded by American capital, became the inevitable choice to fight against Huawei, and Nokia, which was in crisis, gained a new life cycle.
In 2020, the darkest period for Huawei’s overseas 5G business, Nokia’s share increased to more than 20%. However, in China, which has the largest 5G market capacity in the world, Nokia has been almost completely removed from the procurement targets of the three major operators because its products lack competitiveness, backward performance and are expensive.
Obviously, even Qualcomm is not afraid of Huawei, which has a deep intellectual property moat. Nokia probably does not dare to touch it, and chooses the country's largest mobile phone in the post-Huawei era. OPPO, the manufacturer, has a long-planned plan to compete in the field of patents.
Can OPPO, which has been relatively low-key and has been working quietly to improve its hard-core capabilities, withstand this wave of attacks from Nokia, the representative of Western technology? This is a game that domestic mobile phone manufacturers must face head-on in the post-Huawei era if they want to fill the gap in Huawei's high-end mobile phones.
Nokia has always believed that it is the leader in the field of essential patents for 5G standards. This conclusion is based on an independent third-party research report, which claims that Nokia ranks first in patents on mobile phone standards including 5G. First.
This consulting organization is PA Couslting, and its April 2021 research report shows that Nokia ranks first in 5G valid patents.
But also from Europe, the "Who is leading the 5Gpatent race?" released by IPlystics of Germany, in which Huawei ranked first with 15.4% of 5G standard essential patents, and Nokia ranked third.
On April 22, the United States Unified Patent released the distribution of 5G RAN standard essential patent holders. Huawei still ranked first with 14.8%, and Nokia ranked seventh with 4.9%.
In short, Nokia’s complete defeat in China’s communications equipment market will prompt Nokia to make some divisive actions, such as offering a “patent stick” to other Chinese manufacturers except 5G giant Huawei. "Huawei's mobile phone business has temporarily retreated. Do our other manufacturers have the hard-core power to compete with us?"
Recently, the intellectual property industry media IPRdaily and the incoPat Innovation Index Research Center jointly released the "2021 PCT International Patent Application Ranking of Chinese Enterprises TOP100". Huawei ranks first with 4,378 patents, and OPPO ranks second with 1,569 patent applications, followed by Ping An, ZTE, TCL CSOT, BOE, VIVO, AAC Technology, DJI, and Midea.
It seems that from this list, after Huawei, the only one with the most potential to succeed in the field of intellectual property is the OV series. During the period when Huawei's mobile phone business encountered a trough, OPPO has inevitably continued to maintain a low profile.
As of the fourth quarter of 2020, OPPO is already the fourth largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. In particular, OV is owned by BBK, and its size and scale advantages are self-evident. As the overseas markets and global influence of the OV series continue to increase, the intellectual property risks that come with it cannot be avoided.
In the past few years, in addition to substantial investment in R&D, OPPO has also obtained a large number of patent licenses in key mobile phone technology fields through acquisitions and cooperation, ensuring the security of its mobile phone business on a global scale. A solid foundation has been laid for operations.
In patent litigation in recent years, OPPO’s record is amazing:
In 2019, Siemens sued OPPO and vivo for two communications patents in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court. was dismissed.
In 2021, with the patent war between OPPO and Nokia already underway, OPPO and Sisvel ended the two-year patent dispute and reached a licensing agreement. Sisvel is a very aggressive patent litigation and licensing organization, mainly operating in Europe. There are more than 60 global patent lawsuits with Sisvel as the plaintiff. Sisvel has always demanded excessive licensing fees, has a tough attitude and leaves no room for negotiation.
OPPO has also achieved excellent results in the field of 5G patents. OPPO continues to lay out 5G communication standard patents in more than 20 countries and regions around the world, has completed 3,900 global patent applications, and claimed 1,600 5G standard patents in ETSI.
OPPO has submitted more than 3,000 standard manuscripts to 3GPP. According to IPlytics, a leading German research institution, a report on the number of essential patent claims for global 5G standards in 2021 was released, and OPPO ranked among the top ten globally.
After almost losing its 5G share in mainland China, Nokia has been eager to implement high patent fees in China with the intention of harvesting many domestic mobile phone manufacturers. OPPO should be their carefully selected opponent.
OPPO represents a Chinese mobile phone company, while Nokia represents a traditional overseas "patent major". This game around the licensing rate of 5G standard essential patents has been a nail-biter from the beginning.
What many people did not expect was that, relying on OPPO’s accumulation in the fields of R&D and intellectual property rights over the past few years, OPPO decisively fought back. It went beyond just responding to lawsuits and launched a resolute counterattack against Nokia, suing Nokia. The base station products infringe OPPO’s 5G patents.
This time OPPO has made sufficient preparations to cut the knot quickly and end other patent disputes, focusing on the Nokia battle. OPPO, a terminal manufacturer, actually reserves base station-related patents and uses countermeasures to compete head-on with Nokia.
At a time when Huawei’s mobile phones are in decline, if domestic mobile phones are to continue to prosper, especially to fill the gap in Huawei’s high-end mobile phones, they can only abandon the marketing model strategy, always insist on substantial R&D investment, and obtain meaningful hard-core technology support.
Huawei announced its 5G patent licensing fee standards in March this year, and then there was the patent war between Nokia and OPPO. As the domestic mobile phone manufacturer most likely to carry Huawei's baton, OPPO can show more strength, let us wait and see.