Huawei sues voice. Why does Huawei sue the African mobile phone king
The listing of Chuanyin holdings is imminent, but it has encountered obstacles in patents and copyrights. Recently, interface news exclusively obtained a notice of case acceptance from Shenzhen intermediate people's court, which shows that:
On September 23, Huawei filed a case against Shenzhen Chuanyin Holding Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Chuanyin Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Shenzhen taihengnuo Technology Co., Ltd., Huizhou efuto Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Zhixun keto Technology Co., Ltd. and Chongqing Chuanyin Technology Co., Ltd.
"Huawei's prosecution of the transmission content is not a particularly important infringement, and the claim amount is not large, but it is Huawei's shocking move in the transmission patent," a person familiar with the case told the interface news reporter.
Huawei replied to the interface news: it will not respond to this matter for the time being.
According to public data, voice holdings is mainly engaged in the design, R & D, production, sales and brand operation of smart terminals with mobile phones as the core. Its main products are Tecno, itel and infinix mobile phones. All products are sold overseas, and the sales areas are mainly concentrated in emerging market countries such as Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South America.
The company has become famous in the past two years, mainly thanks to the resounding title of the outside world - the 'King of Africa' in the field of mobile phones.
According to the prospectus, the company's operating revenue in the first half of 2019 reached 10.504 billion yuan, of which the market share in Africa reached 48.71%.
In addition, the company is about to land on the hot science and innovation board, which also attracts the attention of the capital market and investors.
On September 27, the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced that the A shares of Shenzhen Chuanyin Holding Co., Ltd. will be listed and traded on the science and Innovation Board of the Institute and will be listed and traded from September 30, 2019. The securities are abbreviated as' Chuanyin holding 'and the securities code is' 688036'.
At the key nodes to be listed, the problem of weak transmission technology and patents has become the focus again, which is also the biggest uncertainty of the company for a long time. This time, Huawei's complaint is likely to officially open the unfavorable battle of voice transmission in patents.
According to the prospectus, Chuanyin and its subsidiaries have obtained a total of 630 patents owned by the State Intellectual Property Office in China, including 97 invention patents, 385 utility model patents and 148 design patents.
In terms of copyright, Chuanyin holding and its holding subsidiaries have 286 computer software copyrights and 69 core software copyrights related to production and operation.
Compared with the competitors in the industry, the accumulation of technology and patents of sound transmission is far from enough.
Take Huawei Technology Co., Ltd. as an example, the number of patents has reached 100000. According to the data of oppo, as of September 11, 2019, the number of global patent applications of oppo exceeded 38000 + and the number of authorized patents exceeded 12000 +. Vivo's company vivo Communications Co., Ltd. also has 10000 + patents.
In terms of internationalization of mobile phone companies, patents are more important competitiveness than the product itself. Many companies have encountered patent problems in the journey of internationalization.
In December 2014, the Delhi High Court of India ruled that Xiaomi violated Ericsson's standard core patent portfolio (SEP) and issued an injunction requiring Xiaomi to stop selling and importing mobile phones in India. In 2018, Coolpad group accused Xiaomi of infringing its patent rights, involving more than 200 invention patents.
HTC is the most typical mobile phone company that lost the patent war. In March 2010, apple sued HTC's Android system for infringement of its patent in Delaware and ITC. HTC paid a huge price in 2012. It is generally believed that this patent war is the node of HTC's decline.
Li Junhui, a special researcher of the intellectual property research center of China University of political science and law, told the interface news reporter that if voice only sells functional mobile phones in the African market, the patent problem should be OK, because many 2G patents have expired and become open technologies without paying. If you enter the field of smart phones, the risk will become greater and greater.
Africa, as a blue ocean market in the field of mobile phones, is still in its infancy. Therefore, the function machine has become the main model of users. However, as smart phones begin to improve, including 3G, 4G and 5g, more and more technologies and patents will be involved.
Voice holding also mentioned in the prospectus that the proportion of smart phones began to increase: 'from January to June 2019, the company's sales of smart phones were 16.57 million and the sales of functional phones were 38.15 million. The sales volume, sales amount and proportion of intelligent machines are rising. ".
"The higher the proportion of smart phones, the greater the risk, and the potential scale of patent fees to be paid will become larger, especially the greater the probability of patent encirclement and suppression by some NPE (non patent implementing entities)", Li Junhui said.
According to the standards of the mobile phone industry, if you only pay the patent fee to Qualcomm, the cost is about 3.25% of the whole machine. If you add other potential manufacturers who may charge the patent fee, the patent fee cost of each mobile phone is about 8% - 10%.
Chuanyin has also mentioned the capital risk brought by the patent issue in the prospectus. At the end of June 2019, 2018 and 2017, the balance of estimated liability items shown in the company's financial statements were RMB 817 million, RMB 745 million and RMB 535 million respectively, including after-sales quality premium and patent royalties.
Chuanyin said that the patent royalties are the private brand mobile phones sold by the company. There may be unauthorized use of third-party standard patents, which shall be accrued according to the amount that may be paid in the future. As the company needs significant accounting estimation and judgment when estimating the amount of after-sales quality premium and patent royalty, the estimated amount has a significant impact on the operating results.
Not only Huawei sued, but on the eve of listing, the CSRC has paid attention to the issue of whether voice holding has the ability of sustainable innovation in core technology and existing R & D system, and also conducted key inquiries.
Li Junhui said that the current situation of voice transmission is that it typically has neither the power to parry nor the power to fight back, that is, it is to sit and wait for the prosecution, and the two sides negotiate and settle.
Because it specializes in emerging low-end users in Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South America, voice transmission has been wandering in a relatively blank marginal market.
With the saturation of the global mobile phone market, major companies will also come to these markets, which means that the voice can not be located in a corner, and the title of the 'King of Africa' will also encounter greater challenges.
In the second quarter of 2019, China's smartphone market shipped about 97.9 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 6.1%. In the first half of 2019, the overall shipment was about 180 million units, down 5.4% compared with the same period last year.
Manufacturers represented by Huawei and Xiaomi gradually increase their efforts to explore emerging markets by setting up regional departments and formulating relevant plans. Huawei recently launched an online platform 'Huawei Mall' in South Africa and other places to further increase market promotion. Xiaomi established the Africa regional department in January 2019 and reached cooperation with the African e-commerce platform jumia for online product sales.
The Indian market is more competitive. Samsung, Xiaomi and other manufacturers continue to increase investment in R & D, marketing and other fields in the Indian market; Relying on the advantages of local operators, Indian local manufacturers lyf launched the ultra-low price function machine business with bound traffic in the function machine field, which has a certain impact on other mobile phone manufacturers.
The prospectus risk of voice holding suggests that with the further saturation of the mature market in the future, other mobile phone manufacturers are not excluded from entering and strengthening the development of emerging markets such as Africa and India, and the market competition risk faced by the company will be increasing.
In the process of competition, patents will be one of the most critical 'weapons' in the competition. Li Junhui said that if voice focuses on low-end mobile phones in Africa, the role of technology in competition is limited. However, if you want to slowly improve the proportion of smart phones, voice needs to increase technology investment, including self-developed technologies and appropriate patent mergers and acquisitions.
The prospectus shows that during the reporting period, the average annual R & D amount of Chuanyin holdings increased year by year, and the R & D investment during the reporting period exceeded 2 billion yuan. With the expansion of the business scale of voice holding, the future R & D investment will be further improved.
In addition, the company is acquiring patents from other companies. According to the prospectus, the company has obtained 94 patents in total from xianghuawei Technology Co., Ltd., Yulong computer communication technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., Xi'an Kupai Software Technology Co., Ltd. and Dongguan Yulong Communication Technology Co., Ltd., which have been used and applied to the company's products. However, due to the short time, the current revenue contribution is small.