Asia Pacific Watch

March 15, 2004
ZTE announces record GSM market growth

CHINA -- ZTE Corp. has announced that sales of its GSM equipment have reached over 20 countries worldwide, in addition to its having supplied to all the Chinese provinces. In 2003 alone, ZTE won major GSM deals in Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Russia, most of which are large-scale, turn-key, projects. It won the GSM project of NITEL in Nigeria, and will deliver a full package of GSM/GPRS main equipment for four cities in the country. In Russia, it signed a contract with SMARTS, one of the largest GSM operators in the country.

Ye Weiming, vice president and general manager, mobile communication products division, ZTE, said: "Our competitors such as Motorola, Ericsson, and Nokia are active in China and overseas. However, I believe that ZTE can hold on to its own place as its products have reached a formidable level in terms of quality and services. We can offer local operations with total solutions."

To date, ZTE is one of the few wireless vendors that can provide GSM/CDMA/PHS products to operators. Its differential GSM-WLL and GPRS solutions have won high praise from operators in Peru and Chile. It’s in depth co-operation with multinational carriers such as Spanish Telecom, Portuguese Telecom, MIC, and Telefonica is progressing well.

In China, ZTE has become one of the largest suppliers of short message equipment. By 2003, its short message system had a total processing ability of over 86.4 million BHSM (busy hour short messages). In Shanghai, it provided a SC system for Shanghai Mobile, which is now the largest SC in the world.

Ye added: "We attribute our market success to our strong R&D capability. We are paying much attention to the next-gen technology. For example, our R&D center in Sweden is engaged in 3G technology, and we have set up over 10 field trials and pilots to convince operators about the advantage of our W-CDMA products."

In 2003, ZTE also launched its BTS version 2, one of the largest applications of its kind in the world, which is highly integrated and supports dual bands. ZTE's self-developed GSM version that supports migration form 2G and 3G won excellent achievements in MTNET tests organised by the Ministry of Information Industry.

ZTE has already completed its GSM solutions for 850M, 900M, 1800M, 1900M, and EGSM. It is developing 2.75G EDGE products that support migration from GSM, GPRS, and EDGE to W-CDMA.