Huawei ranks first in patent applications in Europe, ahead of other companies

Data released by the European Patent Office showed that Huawei ranked first in the number of patent applications in Europe, ahead of other companies such as Samsung and LG. This shows that although Huawei has suffered some setbacks in the European market, it still attaches great importance to the European market and is ready to make a comeback at any time. Such an achievement is due to its long-term investment of hundreds of billions in research and development.

Data from the European Patent Office show that Huawei ranks first with 3,544 patent applications, and Samsung ranks second with 3,439 patent applications. The two are the only two companies with more than 3,000 patent applications, far ahead of other companies. Since Samsung's business is quite complicated, if we only talk about communication patents, it is estimated that Huawei should far exceed Samsung. LG ranks third in the number of patent applications, and Ericsson and Qualcomm are also among them, but the number of patent applications for the two is only 1,884 and 1,534 respectively, which is far less than Huawei. Today, in terms of 5G patents, Huawei is far ahead of Ericsson and Qualcomm, which were once giants in the communications industry. What's strange is that Nokia, which is also in Europe, did not make the list this time. I wonder if it is because Nokia's performance has been poor in recent years, struggling between profits and losses, and continuing to lay off employees, thus reducing investment in technology research and development.

Huawei is far ahead in the number of patent applications because of its long-term huge investment in technology research and development. Although its revenue fell by more than 200 billion yuan in 2021, it still invested more than 100 billion yuan in technology research and development, with an investment amount of up to 142.7 billion yuan. Data from 2021 showed that Huawei's technology research and development investment ranked third in the world, ahead of Samsung and Apple. Huawei is now a benchmark in China's technology industry. It has long been ranked first in China in technology research and development. The 2021 ranking data of domestic corporate R&D investment shows that Huawei's R&D investment ranks first, and its technology research and development investment is 2.4 times that of the second place and 3.6 times that of the third place. Due to Huawei's emphasis on technology research and development, Huawei continues to lead the industry in core technology. The HiSilicon Kirin chip it developed is in a leading position in the world, comparable to Qualcomm; the ARM architecture server chip it developed has become the industry's first ARM architecture server chip to achieve large-scale commercial use, breaking Intel's monopoly in the server chip market and winning a considerable market share in the bidding of China Mobile and China Telecom.

Thanks to the efforts of Chinese companies such as Huawei, China has rapidly caught up with Europe and the United States in terms of technology research and development. Now, China has ranked first in the world in terms of patent applications for 11 consecutive years. The rapid increase in the number of patents is accelerating the competitiveness of Chinese manufacturing in various industries around the world. It is reported that China has ranked first in 13 industries around the world. Earlier analysis of various economies around the world by analysis agencies pointed out that the European Union has achieved a dominant position in the automotive field, the United States has a leading position in ICT and health fields dominated by biotechnology, and China has advantages in information, communications, the Internet and other industries. After decades of hard work, China has finally established its own advantageous industries.

On April 5, the European Patent Office released its 2021 annual report, showing that China's patent applications in Europe reached 16,665, accounting for 9% of the total number of applications registered by the agency throughout the year, an increase of 24% compared to 2020. This figure once again broke the record and ranked fourth among all countries.

Huawei applied for a total of 3,544 patents to the EPO in 2021, becoming the company with the largest number of patent applications to the EPO last year. South Korea's Samsung and LG ranked second and third with 3,439 and 2,422 patents respectively. Ericsson ranked fourth. Siemens ranked fifth.

It is reported that in 2020, Samsung Electronics ranked first with 3,276 patent applications to the EPO, but was overtaken by Huawei in just one year.

In addition, OPPO, ZTE, Baidu, Xiaomi and Tencent are also among the top 50 in this list, indicating that Chinese companies are increasingly paying attention to technological innovation and patent reserves in the process of internationalization.

The report shows that the number of patent applications received by the EPO last year totaled 188,600, up 4.5% year-on-year. Among them, the digital communication field had the strongest growth, up 8.2% year-on-year, followed by medical technology (up 8.1%) and computer technology (up 7.8%), while electronic machinery ranked fourth with an increase of 6.4%.

The top five countries with the most patent applications are the United States (25%), Germany (14%), Japan (11%), China (9%) and France (6%). The growth in patent applications at the European Patent Office in 2021 was mainly due to China and the United States.

China applied for 16,665 patent applications to the EPO in 2021, ranking fourth with a share of 9%, once again setting a new record for the number of Chinese patent applications at the European Patent Office. It is also worth mentioning that the number of EPO patent applications filed by Chinese companies increased by 24% year-on-year, ranking first among the 30 major patent application countries.

Aidan Kendrick, chief business analyst at the European Patent Office, said in an interview that the number of patent applications received by the European Patent Office from China has increased fourfold in the past decade; data from 2021 showed that the number of Chinese patent applications showed a "very dynamic development trend."

Speaking of these companies, I believe everyone is very familiar with them. As one of the top technology companies in China and even the world, Huawei not only has a huge amount of patent technology as support, but its network communication business, mobile phone and other businesses are also spread all over the world. Even at the peak of Huawei, its mobile phone business directly surpassed Apple and became the top two mobile phone manufacturers in the world.

ZTE, Baidu and OPPO are also domestic technology companies. Baidu is a well-known domestic Internet company, and ZTE is one of the top network communication companies in the world. ZTE has played a huge role in promoting 5G construction.

As for OPPO, I believe everyone can see its patent technology. According to relevant data: As of March 31, 2022, OPPO's global patent applications exceeded 77,000, and the number of global authorizations exceeded 38,000. Among them, the number of invention patent applications exceeded 69,000, and invention patent applications accounted for 90% of all patent applications. According to the 2021 International Patent Treaty (PCT) application rankings released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), OPPO ranked 6th in the world.

Such a huge amount of patented technology also gives OPPO an absolute competitive advantage in the global market. Take the products for example, the OPPO Find N released at the end of last year and the OPPO Find X5 series released this year have attracted much attention and popularity from users around the world. First of all, OPPO Find N, although it is OPPO's first folding screen mobile phone, but with its self-developed pseudo-cone precision hinge, it not only solves the industry pain point of "creases", but also brings free hovering, exclusive Color OS 12 system and other functions, which maximizes the experience of using folding screen mobile phones.

The OPPO Find X5 series is OPPO's first high-end flagship model this year. With the Mariana X imaging chip, Hasselblad imaging, and dual IMX766 sensor lenses, its imaging capabilities are comparable to those of the iPhone, and even better in low-light environments. It is precisely because of this that OPPO can continue to bring surprising products with its strong technical strength.

As we all know, core technology is the foundation for a company's steady development. The more patents a company has, the stronger its self-research capabilities are. The more patents it has, the higher its value level is. When companies continue to go global, making international patent layouts in advance will help enhance core competitiveness, protect independent intellectual property rights, and build a moat for the long-term development of the company!