ZTE will announce today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it expects to increase smartphone revenues by 30 percent in 2013, and maintain its position as one of the top 4 global handset manufacturers.
ZTE’s handset business has seen steady development and profit growth during 2012. Industry analyst IDC reported that ZTE had shipped 65 million handsets in 2012, accounting for 3.8 percent of the global handset market and confirming ZTE as one of the top 4 handset producers.
“We know that our future success means we have to build the ZTE brand, and another target for us is to be a top 5 vendor in terms of brand awareness and reputation within the next three years,” said ZTE EVP and Head of the Mobile Devices Division Mr. He Shiyou. “2013 is the final year of our three year transformation into a high-end smartphone brand, but we have a lot of building still to do.
“As I have said before, we aim to be a top 3 handset manufacturer by 2015. This target has not changed.”
Revenues from China, the U.S. and Europe now account for more than 70 percent of ZTE’s handset revenues, with the majority of those sales being smartphones. ZTE has strategic partnerships with 47 among the global top 50 carriers and is building a worldwide distribution channel for sales of ZTE-branded phones through online and high street retailers. Revenues from distribution channels continue to grow and recently passed the mark of making up more than 15% of total ZTE handset revenues for the first time.
ZTE’s transformation into an own-brand smartphone market player has shown strong results, with 2012 smartphones sales up 100 percent on 2011, and with smartphone revenues accounting for 70 percent of total handset revenues. The company aims to increase the smartphone share of its overall corporate handset sales volume by 60 percent in 2013, with Europe and North America accounting for 60 percent of ZTE’s overall handset sales outside China.