Chipset major Qualcomm today announced its patent deal with OPPO Mobile Telecommunications for China region.
The deal does not include India, where OPPO has a major presence.
The US-based Qualcomm has provided a royalty bearing patent license to develop, manufacture and sell 3G (WCDMA and CDMA2000) and 4G, including 3-mode (LTE-TDD, TD-SCDMA and GSM) complete terminals.
OPPO has achieved 137 percent growth in smartphone shipments in the second quarter of 2016 by shipping 22.6 million smartphones for grabbing 6.6 percent of the market, lagging behind 77 million smartphones shipped by Samsung and the 40.4 million from Apple, according to IDC.
Qualcomm aims to ride on the growth of smartphone market which is expected to grow 3.1 percent in 2016 following a growth of 10.5 percent last year and a 28 percent surge in 2014.
Adler Feng, director, Intellectual Property, OPPO, said: “The license agreement will allow us to have access to the most advanced technologies in the mobile industry and enable us to craft elegant devices with extraordinary experience for the consumers.”
China is a prominent international market for Qualcomm, with smartphone players such as ZTE, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, available for collaboration. IDC expects the total Chinese server market to reach $6 billion by 2020, benefiting groups like Qualcomm.
Qualcomm has 195 royalty-bearing single-mode OFDM/OFDMA licensees currently, compared to 180 in the previous quarter, and the number of CDMA-based licensees going from 310+ to 320+. It also benefited from delayed revenue recognition following the settlement of a patent dispute with LG Electronics.
Qualcomm, which is trying to get royalties from major China smartphone makers, has recently sued Meizu Technology for getting the phone maker to negotiate a license agreement for using the chip-maker technology.
“OPPO joins more than 100 other Chinese companies that have signed license deals with Qualcomm that are consistent with terms of the rectification plan submitted by Qualcomm to the NDRC,” said Alex Rogers, senior vice president and general manager, Technology Licensing, Qualcomm.
Vina Krishnan
[email protected]
