Huawei leads global ICT innovation through patents and integrated partnerships

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva announced that Huawei — a leading global ICT solutions provider — topped the list of international patent filers in 2015 for the second year in a row. In total, Huawei applied for 3,898 patents, 456 more than the previous year, beating out other leading technology players including Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony, and HP.

WIPO tracks applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), an agreement that gives a filer patent protection in 148 countries with a single application. 

International patent applications filed under the PCT grew by 1.7% to 218,000 in 2015, a new annual record. “Global intellectual property applications, like those for patents, trademarks and industrial designs, provide a good indication of the incidence and location of innovation,” explained WIPO Director General Francis Gurry.

Additional to WIPO’s ranking, this month’s Subscriber Data Management (SDM) market survey published by Frost & Sullivan placed Huawei at the top in the SDM market for 2015, with a global share of 30%. By year’s end, the Huawei SDM solution, which provides a platform with open interfaces to real-time subscriber data, had served over 310 operators in more than 136 countries. The white paper reported that the advantage of Huawei SDM solution lies in how it helps operators improve operation efficiency, accelerate service innovation and explore the potential value of subscriber data. These operators can in turn manage the growing subscriber data, simplify the network, and reduce operation costs.

“Collaborating with vendors on research programs and acquiring patents are just some of the R&D activities that enable us to better integrate ICT technologies into various industries,” said Zou Zhilei, President of Carrier Business Group, Huawei. “As a key enabler in the ICT industry, Huawei is committed to helping the telecom industry and other verticals digitize their infrastructure, operational systems and business models with state-of-the-art innovative technology,” Zou added.

Huawei was also recognized by several leading marketing and brand authorities including UK consulting firm Brand Finance in its “Global Top 100 Valuable Brands” list, Interbrand’s “Best Global Brands” report for 2014 and 2015, as well as WPP’s BrandZ in its “Global Top 100 Most Valuable Brands” for 2015. 

Huawei has been showcasing its leadership in innovation globally at key events around the world including CeBIT 2016 this month, where Huawei demonstrated leading solutions while highlighting its capability of empowering customers to lead in the new ICT era. CeBIT 2016 also saw the launch of the industry's first Internet of Things (IoT) lighting solution, Huawei Connected City Lighting Solution, with multi-level intelligent control.   

At Mobile World Conference 2016 in February, Huawei launched its flagship MateBook 2 in 1 device delivering high-end productivity that seamlessly integrates mobility, high efficiency, work and entertainment.  Huawei also shared its 5 ‘Big Initiatives’ that will drive growth for regional telecom providers, foreseeing a potential $100 billion video streaming market, a $1 trillion enterprise cloud market, and ten-fold growth in the number of IoT connections.  Huawei describes the five initiatives as Big Video – Everywhere, Big IT – Enabling, Big Operation – Agile, Big Architecture – Elastic, and Big Pipe – Ubiquitous. Huawei also showcased its Safe City Solution that enables cities to build multidimensional, intelligent security systems featuring awareness, visualization, and collaboration, helping governments improve crisis prevention, reduce emergency response time and reaction, as well as driving down crime rate. 

Huawei continues to support regional operators through cutting edge solutions as they push to rollout advanced wireless services on 4.5G while paving the way for next-generation 5G capability in near the future. Building on that, Huawei’s IoT and smart cities solutions provide the platform for further regional innovation around large-scale national initiatives.  Huawei’s regional innovation center in Dubai and joint innovation centers with its strategic partners in the Gulf enable Huawei to deliver this capability as while supporting local communities through knowledge transfer and by nurturing local talents, an initiative that Huawei implements across all regional markets and is a key component of its global ‘Seeds for the Future’ CSR program.