Transsion, Africa's top mobile seller, has been hit with a lawsuit from Huawei. Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court accepted the case on September 23, and was reported on the eve of Transsion's public filing on Shanghai's Nasdaq-style sci-tech innovation board on Monday.

Headquartered in Shenzhen, Transsion is a top-seller of smartphones in Africa under its Tecno brand. The company was sued by Huawei for copyright ownership and infringement disputes. 

The infringement is not exceptionally egregious, and the amount of claim is not large, but is more a symbolic slap in the face from Huawei during a sensitive time for Transsion, a source familiar with the case told Jiemian.com.

"I believe that the law would give a fair answer," Yicai quoted Zhu Zhaojiang, founder and chairman of Transsion. 

Transsion's IPO prospectus shows the company has obtained 630 patents from the State Intellectual Property Office in China. The number pales in comparison to other Chinese smartphone companies. Huawei has 100,000 patents, OPPO has over 38,000 patents, and Vivo over 10,000 patents. 

Patents are largely considered to be significant to smartphone internationalization, even potentially more crucial than the products themselves. Transsion has been able to dominate the African market due to the outdated nature of much of the technology on the African continent. Large swathes of Africa still use 2G technology, the patents for which have already expired, according to Pandaily. 

However, as Africa continues to modernize its technology, the use of 3G, 4G, and even 5G will become more prevalent, forcing Transsion to adjust if it is to retain its position in the African mobile market. 

Good debut despite the lawsuit

Transsion issued 80 million A-shares on the STAR Market at an opening price of 35.15 yuan (about five U.S. dollars) to raise 2.8 billion yuan (about 394 million dollars).

Despite the lawsuit, the shares price of Transsion surged on the first trading day. As of the writing time, the price jumped by 67.51 percent to 58.88 yuan (about 8.26 U.S. dollars).

The STAR Market is the Shanghai Stock Exchange's new Nasdaq-style board for tech stocks that went live in July.