Chinese handset maker Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., known as the "king of phones in Africa," is facing a fresh legal challenge from Huawei, highlighting growing intellectual property risks as it expands into emerging markets where Xiaomi and other rivals are gaining ground.
Patent pressures mount
Huawei is the fourth company in recent months to accuse Transsion of infringing patents tied to high-efficiency video coding (HEVC). NEC, JVC, and Sun Patent Trust have already filed similar suits in Europe and Brazil, according to reports from Sina, Huxiu, and Forbes China.
The most recent suit, lodged on June 20, 2025, at the Munich division of the Unified Patent Court, alleges that Transsion and its affiliates violated Huawei's European patent EP2725797. The filing covers decoding, encoding, and image-filtering technology aimed at improving video compression and memory efficiency in smartphone displays. Both companies have declined to comment.
Tensions resurface
The dispute revives tensions dating back to 2019, when Huawei sued Transsion over smartphone wallpaper themes and sought CNY20 million (US$2.78 million) in damages. Huawei claimed Transsion had used its designs for preloaded wallpapers and marketing with only minor color changes. That case was settled in June 2020, but the latest action in Europe marks an escalation beyond the Chinese market.
Transsion, which debuted on the Shanghai stock exchange in 2019 with a market value that briefly surpassed CNY200 billion, has since seen its capitalization fall by half to about CNY97.6 billion. Despite posting strong revenue and profit growth in 2024, the string of patent suits is clouding its outlook and raising investor doubts about the company's long-term growth prospects.
Article edited by Jerry Chen
