Ericsson and OPPO entered a global patent license agreement in February
Ericsson and Chinese technology firm OPPO have established a joint lab in Shenzhen, China, which will focus on 5G innovation, the Swedish vendor said in a release.
Under the new agreement, both companies will combine 5G technology expertise to optimize 5G products and network performance to help accelerate the large-scale global deployment of 5G.
Andy Wu, President of OPPO’s Software Engineering, said: “We are very excited to launch our 5G joint lab with Ericsson. The initiative leverages Ericsson’s advantages in 5G network and infrastructure technologies and its global operator channels with OPPO’s experience and expertise in 5G standards development, technologies, products and application scenarios. We will work together to embrace the challenges and opportunities ahead in the 5G era in order to provide better 5G products and experiences for consumers around the world.”
Luca Orsini, Vice President and Head of Networks Market Area North East Asia, Ericsson, said: “This partnership is of highly strategic importance for both Ericsson and OPPO. It will contribute to the diversity of the 5G ecosystem and benefit from the agility of both companies to bring new use cases and customer value to the market.”
In February 2019, Ericsson and OPPO had inked a global patent license agreement, which included a cross license covering the 2G, 3G and 4G patent portfolios from both companies. This agreement stipulates that OPPO, the fifth largest smartphone vendor in the world with business operations in more than 40 markets globally, will make on-going royalty payments to Ericsson based on a substantial part of their annual sales.
In addition to a cross license, the agreement between OPPO and Ericsson included business cooperation on a number of projects related to 5G, like device testing, customer engagements and demos at Mobile World Congress 2019, which took place in Barcelona, Spain, in February.
Since the third quarter of 2018, Ericsson and OPPO have been running joint 5G tests on OPPO’s 5G handset and Ericsson’s 5G infrastructure with local operator partners in Sweden, Germany and China as part of an effort to accelerate the commercial availability of 5G products
The companies also worked together with Swisscom and Qualcomm to enable the Swiss communications service provider to become the first in Europe to launch commercial 5G.
Ericsson now has more than 70 commercial 5G agreements or contracts with unique communication service providers. The European vendor has already publicly announced 24 wins in the 5G segment. Some key customers include AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile US, US Cellular, Verizon, Swisscom, TDC, Telenor, Vodafone UK, Wind , Etisalat, Optus, Ooredoo, STC, KT, SK Telecom and Telstra.
