Each 5G smartphone has to pay a fee of 2.5 USD to Huawei

Huawei announced royalty rates for 4G and 5G, Wi-Fi and IoT handsets using its patents.

At the event on innovation and intellectual property rights in Shenzhen (China) last week, Mr. Song Liuping, Chief Legal Officer of Huawei , said the company is "willing to share innovation patents with us" the whole world to contribute to common development". They also announced licensing fees for all areas the company owns, including 4G and 5G handsets, Wi-Fi 6 devices, and IoT products.

Specifically, each 4G and 5G handset will have a maximum royalty fee of 1.5 and 2.5 USD, respectively. For each Wi-Fi 6 user device, Huawei will collect 0.5 USD. IoT Centric devices have a 1% fee on the actual sale price, capped at $0.75, while advanced IoT devices will range from $0.30-1.

A person is using a smartphone to take a photo of the Huawei logo. Photo: Reuters

Alan Fan, Huawei's Vice President and Head of Intellectual Property, said the company has signed nearly 200 bilateral patent licenses. More than 350 companies have also received licenses to use its patents through the partnership model. Huawei's 2022 license revenue reached $560 million.

Huawei currently owns more than 3,000 5G-related patents, the highest of any company in the world. The Chinese telecommunications company also contributed to the development of ICT standards, such as multimedia, Wi-Fi and cellular encryption schemes.

Huawei claims to be one of the world's largest patent holders. They have invested $140.55 billion in R&D over the past 10 years. In 2022 alone, the amount spent on research and development was 23.23 billion USD, accounting for 25.1% of the total revenue of the year. It ranks fourth in the world in the 2022 industrial R&D investment rankings, according to the European Commission.