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Qt Group Plc (Qt is pronounced "cute") is a software company headquartered in
Espoo Espoo (, ; ) is a city in Finland. It is located to the west of the capital, Helsinki, in southern Uusimaa. The population is approximately . It is the most populous Municipalities of Finland, municipality in Finland. Espoo is part of the Helsi ...
,
Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
. It was formed following the acquisition of Qt by Digia, but was later spun off into a separate, publicly traded company. The company oversees the development of the Qt framework alongside the Qt Project, and provides tools for UI design, software development, quality assurance and testing, as well as expert consulting services.


History


Trolltech 1994–2007

Trolltech was founded by Eirik Chambe-Eng and Haavard Nord on 4 March 1994. The duo started writing Qt in 1991; since then, Qt has steadily expanded and improved. In 2002, Trolltech introduced Qtopia which is based on Qt. Qtopia is an application platform for
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
-based devices such as mobile phones, portable media players, and home media. It is also used in many non-consumer products such as medical instruments and industrial devices. Qtopia Phone Edition was released in 2004, and their Greenphone
smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...
is based on this platform. Trolltech completed an
initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...
(IPO) on the Oslo Stock Exchange in July, 2006.


Part of Nokia 2008–2012

On 28 January 2008, Nokia Corporation announced that they had entered into an agreement to make a public voluntary tender offer to acquire Trolltech. The total cost for Nokia was approximately €104 million. On 5 June 2008 Nokia's voluntary tender offer was approved for all the shares in Trolltech. By 17 June 2008, Nokia had completed its acquisition of Trolltech. On 30 September 2008, Trolltech was renamed as Qt Software, and Qtopia was renamed as Qt Extended. On 11 August 2009, the company's name was changed to Qt Development Frameworks. The Qt environment was a key part of the company's strategy until 2011, when Nokia decided to switch to
Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design languag ...
OS for its smartphones.


Part of Digia 2012–2016

Nokia sold the commercial licensing business of Qt to Digia in March 2011. The following year, Digia acquired the entire Qt development environment and related business from Nokia. As a result of the acquisition, Digia became responsible for all of the functions related to Qt technology, including product development. The main goal of the acquisition was to strengthen Digia's position in the Qt ecosystem and expand the availability of Qt technology across a growing number of platforms. In September 2014, Digia formed The Qt Company, a wholly owned subsidiary dedicated to the development and governance of the Qt platform. In connection with this, the website qt.io went live, combining the
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
qt development and commercial Qt functions that had previously operated at different addresses. Qt products had some 800,000 users globally. In August 2015, Digia Plc's Board of Directors began to explore the
demerger A demerger is a form of corporate restructuring in which the entity's business operations are segregated into one or more components. It is the converse of a Mergers and acquisitions, merger or acquisition. A demerger can take place through a cor ...
of Digia’s domestic businesses and the Qt businesses into two separate listed companies.


Qt Group 2016–current

In May 2016, the company went public on
NASDAQ Helsinki Nasdaq Helsinki, formerly known as the Helsinki Stock Exchange (, ), is a stock exchange located in Helsinki, Finland. Since 3 September 2003, it has been part of Nasdaq Nordic (previously called ''OMX''). After the OMX merger, it was referred t ...
as QTCOM. In March 2016, Digia Plc's Annual General Meeting resolved on the partial demerger of Digia and the demerger was registered in the trade register on May 1. Digia’s Qt business was transferred to a new company, named Qt Group, and Digia's domestic business segment remained under the Digia brand. Digia’s CEO Juha Varelius was appointed as the CEO of Qt Group. Trading in Qt Group shares began on the main list of the Helsinki Stock Exchange in May 2016.  In 2018, the company had 5,000 customers. Approximately 80% of the
Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune (magazine), Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States Joint-stock company#Closely held corporations and publicly traded corporations, corporations by ...
companies are customers of Qt Group. The company attracted the interest of international investors in spring 2020 when its
market capitalization Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders. Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by ...
rose above 500 million euros.  The company's market capitalization exceeded 1 billion euros in October. The share price had risen by more than 700% from the IPO price. The company's net sales were close to EUR 80 million euros and its earnings were approximately 17 million euros.   By spring 2021, the company’s share price had grown nearly fivefold over a period of one year, and its market capitalization was above 2 billion euros. In April, the company announced that it would acquire Froglogic, a Germany-based developer of test automation tools for applications based on the Qt GUI framework. In August, the company made it to the OMXH25 index. The company's net sales amounted to 121 million euros and it had 455 employees. In the fall of 2022, the company announced that it would acquire Axivion, a Germany-based company whose products detect issues that erode the quality and performance of software, i.e.
static program analysis In computer science, static program analysis (also known as static analysis or static simulation) is the analysis of computer programs performed without executing them, in contrast with dynamic program analysis, which is performed on programs duri ...
, among other services. In March 2023, the company had 706 employees.


Organization

Qt Group's head office is located in Helsinki, Finland. The company has approximately 800 employees worldwide. The company’s CEO is Juha Varelius, who previously served as the CEO of Digia from 2008 to 2016. Qt Group has core R&D in
Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...
, Norway, as well as large engineering teams in
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, Germany, and Oulu, Finland. The company also has offices in China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, Norway, South Korea, and the US.


Products

The company provides a software development framework, tools for software design, development, quality assurance and testing, as well as expert consulting services. Its flagship product is Qt, a multi-platform Graphical User Interface ( GUI) framework written in C++. Qt is popular with application developers using C++ but is supported by bindings for other programming languages too, such as Python. Qt also includes packages such as data structures and a networking library. The popular free and
cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...
KDE Plasma KDE Plasma is a Shell (computing), graphical shell developed by the KDE community for Unix-like operating systems. It serves as the interface layer between the user and the operating system, providing a graphical user interface (GUI) and workspa ...
desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphi ...
and software compilation uses the Qt library. The tools can be used for UI design, programming and quality assurance for mobile and desktop applications, as well as embedded systems, which are used in cars, consumer electronics and domestic appliances, for example. Qt also earns revenue from licenses for end products developed with its tools. In 2024, the company’s product portfolio included: * the Qt development framework and tools * UI design tools * quality assurance and testing tools


Markets

Qt Group has customers in 70 industries in over 180 countries and its products are used by approximately 1.5 million developers. In 2018, its largest markets were the USA, Germany, Japan, South Korea, China, France, the UK, Italy and India. The company’s customers operate in a wide range of industries, including consumer electronics, the automotive and
aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial, and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astron ...
industries, industrial automation, energy, defense, medicine and the media. Its products are used by companies such as
Panasonic is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturer, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Kadoma, Japan. It was founded in 1918 as in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Fukushima by Kōnosuke Matsushita. The company was incorporated in 1935 and renamed and c ...
,
LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG, LG Corporation, the fourth ...
, Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft,
Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to simply as Mercedes and occasionally as Benz, is a German automotive brand that was founded in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a subsidiary of the Mercedes-Benz Group, established in 2019) is based in Stuttgart, ...
and
Hyundai Motor Group The Hyundai Motor Group (HMG; ; stylized as HYUNDAI) is a South Korean '' chaebol'' (loosely similar to a multinational conglomerate but without a central holding company or ownership structure) headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. The HMG a ...
.
General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...
uses Qt’s user interfaces to design digital interfaces for its vehicles. The Ultifi software platform launched by GM for over-the-air software updates for its vehicles is based on Qt's products.


Notes


References


External links

*
Qt Marketplace
{{DEFAULTSORT:Qt Company Companies formerly listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange Companies listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Computer companies of Finland Finnish brands Free software companies Nokia assets Qt (software) Software companies of Finland Software companies established in 1994 1994 establishments in Finland 2006 initial public offerings Companies in the OMX Helsinki 25 Companies based in Espoo