Samsung and Sharp join VVC Advance, covering 62% of smartphone market

The inclusion of Samsung and Sharp provides a critical anchor for VVC (H.266) by resolving licensing uncertainty for two of the world's largest consumer electronics portfolios. For the streaming ecosystem, this clears a path for wider hardware implementation in premium devices, which is essential to realizing VVC’s 30-50% bitrate efficiency gains over HEVC. The concentration of top-tier smartphone manufacturers suggests mobile will remain the primary beachhead for VVC adoption. Watch for a corresponding increase in 8K streaming pilots or high-dynamic-range (HDR) mobile services from Asian broadcasters who are already testing the VVC standard for localized content delivery.

The expansion of the VVC Advance pool occurs as the video industry faces a intensifying divide between licensed and royalty-free codec ecosystems. According to recent reporting from Streaming Media (March 2026), while HEVC remains the current production workhorse at 65% deployment, AV1 has gained significant velocity with 40% of video professionals planning 2026 deployments. In contrast, VVC adoption has been historically slower due to a complex licensing landscape and high computational requirements for software-only decoding.

A significant technical milestone was reached in early 2026 when Google added native support for VVC/H.266 to the Android 17 media stack. Per IP Fray (July 2026), this move put VVC on equal technical footing with HEVC and AV1 within the Android ecosystem, though it remains dependent on hardware-based decoders rather than software implementation to manage the codec's complexity. Samsung’s dual-sided participation in the VVC Advance pool is particularly notable as the company holds approximately 5% of all VVC-related patent families, according to LexisNexis data cited by PRIP in July 2026.

Broader market movements suggest that patent pool administrators are aggressively consolidating their positions. Per IP Fray (December 2025), Access Advance became the sole administrator for multiple VVC and HEVC pools after acquiring competitor Via Licensing Alliance's portfolio. Despite a failed attempt by some licensors to move to the Sisvel pool in June 2026, Access Advance has successfully attracted major players including Meta and Alibaba to its broader Video Distribution Patent (VDP) Pool, which covers HEVC, VVC, VP9, and AV1 under a single rate structure.