German patent statistics company IPlytics recently released a report on 5G standard patent statement investigation, which showed that by January 1, 2020, there were 21,571 5G standard patent statements in the world and Huawei ranked the first with 3,147.
The company was followed by Samsung with 2,795, ZTE with 2,561, LG Electronics with 23,00, Nokia with 2,149, and Ericsson with 1,494.
In 2019, Huawei invested CNY131.7 billion, which was about USD18.6 billion, in research and development, accounting for 15.3% of its annual sales. In 2020, the figure will be over USD20 billion.
So far, Huawei has 85,000 valid patents worldwide and its invented patents account for 90%.
Technological innovation is necessary to maintain a leading position. According to Ren Zhengfei, founder of Huawei, the company spent about 20% to 30% of its annual R&D expense in research and innovation and 70% in product development.
Over the past decade, Huawei invested over CNY600 billion in R&D, which accounted for more than 14% of company receivable.