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Huawei used to be at the top of the smartphone game and dominated the likes of more established players like Apple and Samsung. Then the US Entity List came along and Huawei was effectively blacklisted from doing business with US companies, resulting in their smartphone dominance taking a huge hit.
It now looks like Huawei might have found another way to make money, and that is through patent royalties. In a report from Bloomberg, it seems that Huawei will begin negotiating royalties for 5G related patents from other handset makers such as Apple and Samsung. Given that both these companies are amongst the top smartphone brands in the world, that could spell a lot of revenue for Huawei.
Huawei is reported to own the world’s largest collection of 5G related patents and they are hoping that with their huge portfolio, they’ll be able to charge tech companies for using their technology in their products. Huawei says that they will be reasonable in their request for royalties and will cap them at $2.50 per device.
This is versus other 5G patent holders such as Qualcomm who are reportedly charging as much as $7.50 per device. Like we said, Apple and Samsung combined make and sell tens of millions of smartphones, so a savings of $5 per device could result in a lot of money saved and could make Huawei’s patents more appealing.
Source: Bloomberg
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