Huawei fixes Wi-Fi 7 royalty at $0.50, matching Wi-Fi 6 rates

By anchoring Wi-Fi 7 royalties to established Wi-Fi 6 levels, Huawei is attempting to preempt the pricing volatility typically associated with new hardware standards. For consumer electronics manufacturers, this provides a concrete baseline for bill-of-materials (BOM) planning during a critical adoption window. As the industry shifts toward 802.11be to support 8K streaming and lower latency for XR, this transparency puts pressure on other SEP holders like Nokia and Ericsson to justify their own valuation. Stakeholders should monitor whether this 'flat-rate' approach becomes the industry benchmark or if competitors attempt to leverage the performance gains of Wi-Fi 7 to command premium royalties.

The announcement aligns with a broader industry push toward Wi-Fi 7 commercialization following the standard's final publication in July 2025. Per Ookla regional data from June 2026, Wi-Fi 7 currently accounts for roughly 2% of global Speedtest samples, though adoption is intensifying in markets like Singapore where it has reached 25% due to government-led 10 Gbps broadband initiatives. Research firm Omdia forecasts that the global installed base of consumer Wi-Fi 7 equipment will grow at a 35.2% compound annual rate through 2030, eventually representing 13.8% of the market.

Recent legal and administrative developments have further stabilized the licensing landscape. In February 2026, the Munich I Regional Court issued a landmark ruling in the Wilus v. ASUS case, affirming that the rates set by the Sisvel patent pool—of which Huawei is a founding member—met FRAND requirements. This decision pre-dated a May 2026 settlement where ASUS agreed to take a license to Sisvel’s Multimode pool. Other major networking and electronics players, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Sony, also joined the Sisvel program in early 2026, reinforcing the pool's role as a primary licensing vehicle for the 6 GHz era.

While hardware availability has increased with the launch of Wi-Fi 7-compatible devices like the iPhone 17, market analysts at Dell’Oro Group noted in January 2026 that high-volume adoption could still face headwinds from component shortages linked to the AI infrastructure boom. Despite these supply chain concerns, Cisco reported in early 2026 that enterprise demand for Wi-Fi 7 is accelerating as a 'default refresh' cycle begins for the roughly 40% of customers still utilizing legacy Wi-Fi 5 infrastructure. Huawei’s stable pricing strategy specifically targets this mass-market transition by reducing royalty uncertainty for both high-end and mid-range device manufacturers.