Samsung and Xiaomi lead 62% of smartphone market toward VVC hardware support

The integration of VVC hardware support into mobile silicon resolves the long-standing chicken-and-egg problem where content providers avoided the codec due to a lack of compatible devices. By securing 62% of the smartphone market, VVC moves from an experimental phase into a commercial growth cycle that optimizes bandwidth for high-volume AI and streaming traffic. This development positions VVC to coexist with HEVC and AV1 while accelerating the displacement of aging AVC and VP9 standards. Industry observers should monitor Q4 2026 device launches to see if hardware-accelerated VVC decoding leads to immediate bitrate reductions in mobile streaming delivery.

The VVC Advance Patent Pool, administered by Access Advance, has become a critical enabler of VVC hardware support adoption by reducing licensing friction for chipset and device makers. In July 2025, Access Advance announced the inaugural roster of licensees and licensors for its Video Distribution Patent Pool, with participants including ByteDance, Kuaishou, NTT Docomo, and Tencent. The VDP Pool covers HEVC, VVC, VP9, and AV1 under a single license with fixed tiered pricing, allowing streaming services to adopt VVC without negotiating separate royalty agreements for each codec. This directly supports the hardware integration timeline described in this story, as device manufacturers gain confidence that the licensing infrastructure is commercially viable at scale.

On the royalty and business side, Access Advance has locked in VVC Advance pricing through 2030, providing the predictability that smartphone OEMs need before committing silicon area to VVC decode blocks. In July 2025, Access Advance announced that both HEVC Advance and VVC Advance licensors voted to maintain current royalty rates and caps through 2030, with the Multi-Codec Bridging Agreement offering a discounted combined rate for licensees participating in both pools. The company noted that its HEVC pool now represents an estimated 75-80% of the global HEVC patent landscape, more than doubling initial projections. Beginning January 1, 2026, HEVC royalty rates will be updated to align with VVC Advance pricing, making the MCBA even more attractive for licensees across the platform.

From a structural standpoint, the VDP Pool represents Access Advance's response to the multi-codec reality that streaming platforms face as VVC hardware support arrives alongside AV1 and HEVC. The VDP Pool was announced in January 2025 as a single one-stop-shop license covering internet streaming with all four major video codecs, with fixed tiered pricing scaled to the size of the video distributor's business. This structure allows distributors to choose codecs based on technical and business merits rather than royalty costs, which is precisely the flexibility streaming providers need as they evaluate whether to begin VVC encoding once hardware decode reaches sufficient device penetration in late 2026. Meanwhile, AV1 adoption rates hit 57% as the industry continues to weigh codec efficiency against licensing overhead.