Huawei has been ranked fifth on the recently released 2019 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard as one of the biggest investors in research and development worldwide. The scoreboard is made up of the 2,500 companies investing the largest sums in research and development in the world, with data collected from companies’ annual reports and accounts.
As a result of its R&D investments focus, Huawei has been able to lead the development of 5G technologies globally and the Middle East region specifically. This has been powered by investments of $4 billion in 5G research since 2009—more than the total 5G investment from all major equipment vendors in the US and Europe combined. Huawei began 5G research in 2009 and has submitted a total of 23,600 contributions to the 3GPP, which would be a stack more than 10 meters tall if printed out on A4 paper.
Huawei now owns 3,367 families of 5G patents accounting for more than 20pc of the total and ranking first among all ICT vendors. The company has established nine 5G standards and research centres worldwide, has more than 500 experts working on standards and holds positions in over 100 standards organizations.
