Since entering the era of smart phones, Nokia has gradually faded out of the public eye, and the mobile phone business has gradually drifted away. However, unlike the public perception, Nokia, as a veteran communications company, has accumulated profound patented technologies in the field of communication technology from the 2G era to the 5G era, and has made a lot of money in mobile network business, network infrastructure business, and technology business.
Especially in terms of technology patents, Nokia can be called "lying down to make money", Apple, Blackberry, HTC and other well-known manufacturers have been sued by Nokia, no matter how good your mobile phone sells, no matter how advanced the technology is, after all, you can't get around Nokia's communication patents, you can only obediently pay money to Nokia. At its peak, Nokia's revenue from the technology licensing business accounted for 44.7 percent of its total profits! Mobile phone manufacturers could not stand the high patent fees, and it can be said that "Nokia has suffered for a long time." Recently, Nokia seems to be on the verge of a backlash, with its stock price hitting a three-year low.
Recently, the dispute over the royalty of the domestic mobile phone brand OPPO against Nokia has come to an end, and the Chinese court has recognized OPPO's claim and confirmed the mainland's first 5G SEP global license rate judgment. According to the verdict, the mobile phone industry's 5G standard full cumulative rate is 4.341%-5.273%, which is much lower than Nokia's publicly stated claim of 3 euros per unit. The simple understanding is that a $200 5G mobile phone used to pay at least $40 to Nokia in patent fees, but now it only costs up to $10.55.
This is naturally good news for other mobile phone companies, and the reduction of patent licensing fees can greatly reduce costs. However, it is a huge crisis for Nokia, and the global patent licensing fee revenue is likely to plunge sharply, and the patent licensing fee is the profit base of Nokia's overall business, which is not a big blow. Earlier, the patent dispute between OPPO and Nokia had spread to The Hague, Paris, Sweden and other international regions, and OPPO had an advantage.
In addition to the setback in the technology licensing business, as early as 2020, Nokia was kicked out of the supplier list by the US telecom operator Verizon. Not long ago, the American telecom operator AT&T switched to Ericsson and kicked Nokia out of the list of 5G equipment suppliers. AT&T, a major customer of Nokia, has to lower its 2026 operating margin target and plan to reduce operational support.
It can be seen that Nokia's revenue base patent licensing business has suffered a serious setback, and the so-called main business has also continued to lose large customers, which is essentially the decline of Nokia's own competitiveness. AT&T chose Ericsson in the first place, most likely because Nokia was slow to replace its products. Huawei, OPPO and other domestic mobile phone manufacturers dare to confront Nokia's unreasonable patent rates, also because domestic brands have accumulated a large number of patented technologies in the field of 5G. In the face of such a situation, how Nokia will respond is worth our continued attention.