In the past half a month, two names that friends may have forgotten have reappeared in the mobile phone circle.
Nokia, and Ericsson.
Nokia friends may remember, after all, they are still releasing mobile phones.
But "Ericsson", maybe young fans have never heard of it.
It is like this, there used to be such a brand, called Soai.
It's this green ball logo.
Sony, full name Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, is a joint venture between Sony Corporation and Swedish Telecommunications Company: Ericsson.
Selling mobile phones.
There have been a number of classics.
In 2012, Sony acquired Sony, sealed the heart lock "love", and became the current Sony Mobile.
Recently, Ericsson has reappeared in the news.
And as soon as it appeared, it was a violent punch to the Apple iPhone.
Really hammered.
Nokia, on the other hand, hammered another manufacturer , OPPO.
Don't look at Nokia and Ericsson as good as OPPO and Apple.
In the field of communications, these two companies are estimated to be able to hammer OPPO and Apple to death on the ground in minutes.
A mysterious communications giant from Europe
Ericsson is a manufacturer of telecommunications equipment from Sweden with a history of nearly 150 years.
Nokia, on the other hand, is from Finland.
Both companies are based in Europe.
It is also a bit legendary to say, in the era of 1G, that is, big brother, communication technology is in the hands of Motorola.
In order not to let digital communications fall completely into the hands of one country, Europe began to prepare for a grand counterattack.
In 1982, Europe established the "Mobile Expert Group" Groupe Spécial Mobile, also known as "GSM".
This naming, friends should be able to see some of the strangeness - it is consistent with the GSM (Global System for Moible) technology in 2G networks.
GSM technology based on TDMA is the direction chosen by the European Mobile Expert Group.
The world's first GSM network was erected in Europe in 1991 by Nokia and Ericsson.
Over the next decade, Europe went on a rampage, setting standards and laying a large number of base stations around the world.
GSM is used in more than 162 countries and has more than 100 million users.
The GSM network has a 75% share.
Countries that use 2G networks, except for South Korea and the United States, basically can't avoid European patents, nor can they avoid Nokia and Ericsson.
The advantages of 2G networks have continued into the era of 3G networks.
At that time, three different schemes appeared in the world.
W-CDMA、TD-SCDMA、CDMA-2000。
Among these complex communication standards, the CDMA2000 is Qualcomm.
TD-SCDMA is the mainland's own.
W-CDMA is made in Europe.
Based on the background of the previous GSM's crazy base station, Nokia and Ericsson quickly promoted W-CDMA with the help of base stations all over the world.
In the 3G era, most of the world is still using W-CDMA, and the two giants of Europe are still leading the world.
At this time, Qualcomm, ZTE, and Huawei joined the war.
Immediately after, in the 4G era, which is basically completely dominated by the United States, Ericsson and Nokia are not absent.
According to a report by the Intellectual Property Office in 2016, Finland and Sweden ranked fourth and fifth among the top ten countries and regions in the world that held 4G LTE-related standard essential patents that year.
Finland and Sweden rely on Nokia and Ericsson.
In the 5G era when Chinese manufacturers are emerging, these two major manufacturers are also at the forefront.
According to the 2022 report of the Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Nokia and Ericsson ranked sixth and seventh respectively in the top ten effective global patents for 5G.
Together, these two companies can even break the wrist with Huawei in terms of quantity. (Huawei is a real cow wow)
So, although Nokia and Ericsson made mobile phones can't.
But modern phones can't do without Nokia and Ericsson.
The two of them, ah, hold a large number of patents in their hands, and they can make a small profit every year by relying on patent licensing fees.
In ericsson's case, Ericsson's annual revenue in terms of intellectual property licensing amounted to CHF 10 billion in 2016.
Until 2020, this revenue will still be able to maintain 10 billion. (Approximately $1.2 billion)
Nokia is even better, with €1.4 billion in intellectual property revenue in 2020 and more than €1 billion in 2021.
What is this concept?
The machine brother to give a data for your reference.
Huawei generated a total of US$1.4 billion in intellectual property revenue from 2015-2018, an average of US$350 million per year.
In the matter of communication patents, Nokia and Ericsson may make more money in a year than Huawei in 4 years combined.
Lying on more than a billion dollars a year, this business you can say he can't?
Why do you make so much money?
First, many patents charge licensing fees as a percentage of sales revenue.
For example, in 2016, Qualcomm's patent fees for 3G and 4G were 3.5 to 5% of 65% of device sales.
For companies such as Nokia and Ericsson, the patent fee for 3G technology reaches 10% of sales revenue.
In addition to proportional billing, there are also per-mobile phone charges.
For example, Ericsson's 5G patent fee is expected to be $2.5 to $5 per mobile phone.
For every 5G phone sold with Ericsson's patents, they can earn dozens of yuan.
The machine brother looked at it with red eyes.
This is only part of the passive acquisition.
Yes, they can also take it proactively.
They who hold the patent in their hands can sue.
In 2012, Nokia took up the legal weapon and began to sue people.
The first to be recruited were HTC and BlackBerry.
In 2013, Nokia sued Samsung, TCL...
In 2015, Nokia sued LG...
In 2016, Nokia sued Huawei and Apple...
If you can't sue yourself, you can sell the patent to others and let others sue.
In 2012, Nokia sold 500 patents to a New York company that began suing ZTE for patent infringement.
Put it this way, Nokia has almost all the companies in the industry that can be named, and Nokia has almost all of them.
Some have been told several times, such as Apple.
The same goes for Ericsson.
In 2006, Ericsson initiated patent infringement lawsuits against Samsung in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and other countries.
In 2011, Ericsson initiated lawsuits against ZTE for the use of Ericsson GSM and WCDMA patents in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy respectively.
In 2014, Ericsson has initiated patent lawsuits against Xiaomi and Apple...
This year, it is even more direct to ban the sale of iPhone.
There are many of these lawsuits, and a large part of these cases end up with the parties settling or losing the contract.
Everyone cooperated in paying the patent fee, and they happily received it.
Everyone felt that it was unreasonable and did not want to pay, and they also received it through litigation.
The more than one billion dollars in patent licensing fees are earned through these two channels every year.
But yikes!
In terms of patent revenue, they are also deteriorating.
Over the years, many manufacturers have been counter-suing patent manufacturers for "patent smuggling".
In 2013, the mainland imposed a fine of 6.088 billion yuan on Qualcomm;
South Korea, on the other hand, has developed the IFR Guidelines to regulate these patent trolls who hold standard-essential patents;
The EU antitrust law has also been frequently sold in recent years.
It is okay to lie down and collect money, but the days of lying down to collect a large amount of money may be less and less.
But yeah.
These intellectual property licensing revenues are only a fraction of Nokia and Ericsson's annual revenues.
Nokia and Ericsson, like Huawei, will also help some countries or regions build base stations.
This is their old business.
Taking this into account, Ericsson's annual sales for 2021 will be around SEK 232.3 billion, or around $25.1 billion.
Nokia, for its part, will have sales of 22.202 billion euros in 2021, or about $24.8 billion, slightly less than Ericsson.
... The machine brother felt that he would not be able to earn back so much money in a few more lifetimes.
Image from the web