ZTE break into ranks of Top 5 smartphone producers

Rating: Hot on the heels of HTC

Ever since GoMobile News visited leading Chinese handset vendor, ZTE, back in 2009, we’ve predicted that the company will become a major world player. As we said in 2010 in this story ‘ZTE – the totally underestimated Number Five handset maker‘, the company looks set to meet its own target of becoming the Number Three handset manufacturer by 2015. Now look at the latest figures from IDC‘s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report (here). ZTE has broken into the ranks of the global Top Tive smartphone providers. ZTE shipped eight million smartphones in Q2 2012 and its worldwide market share was just 0.5 percentage points behind HTC and 1.4 percentage points behind Nokia.It’s important to also note that ZTE also maintained its Top Four ranking for overall handset shipments in Q2 2012, according to IDC.

It also said that ZTE’s smartphone shipments increased by 300 per cent over the same period in 2011, and achieved a global market share of 5.2 percent.

ZTE’s smartphone sales growth came principally from mainland China and major overseas markets such as France, the UK and the USA.

“ZTE’s great smartphone performance in 2012 in international markets has been a major contributor to our consistent expansion, and is a demonstration of the depth and strength of our R & D,” said head of ZTE’ s terminal Division, He Shiyou.

In Q3-Q4 2012, ZTE will launch the ultra-thin quad-core Grand Era smartphone featuring high-end performance, for example.

“Smartphones are making up a higher and higher percentage of our mobile devices,” saidHe Shiyou.

ZTE smartphone shipments for the full year of 2011 were more than 15 million, an increase of 400 per cent over 2010, making ZTE the fastest growing smartphone maker after Apple.