ZTE

Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment Company Limited
中兴通讯

Type	Public company SZSE: 000063 SEHK: 0763
Founded	1985
Founder(s)	Hou Weigui
Headquarters	Shenzhen, People's Republic of China
Key people	Yin Yimin, CEO and Hou Weigui, chairman
Industry	Telecommunication
Revenue	30.327 billion RMB (2008)
Net income	816 million RMB (January-September 2008)
Employees	39,266 (2006)
Website	www.zte.com.cn

ZTE (Chinese： 中兴通讯) (Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment Company Limited) is a publicly-owned, Chinese corporation that designs and manufactures telecommunications equipment and systems.^[1]

Based in Shenzhen, and established in 1985^[1] ZTE offers a wide variety of telecommunication products and services, including value-added services such as video on demand and streaming media to its customers, which are primarily telecommunications service providers, ^[2] mobile network operators,^[3] etc.

ZTE's core products encompass wireless, telephone exchange, access, optical transmission, and data telcom gear, mobile phones and telecommunications software.^[4]

History

ZTE, like many large Chinese companies, has its roots in the state, having been created in 1985 by a group of state-owned enterprises associated with China's Ministry of Aerospace.^[5] Ties to the state notwithstanding, the corporation is publicly traded, making an IPO on the Shenzhen stock exchange in 1997 and another on the Hong Kong stock exchange in December of 2005.^[5]

Vowing to use the money from its 2005 Hong Kong IPO to further expand R&D, overseas sales to developed nations and overseas production,^[5] ZTE made headway in the international telecom market in 2006 and took 40% of new global orders for CDMA networks,^[6] topping the world CDMA equipment market by number of shipments that same year.^[7] 2006 also saw ZTE find a customer in Canadian Telus.^[3] More customers in developed nations soon followed, in 2007 ZTE had sold to UK's Vodafone, Spain's Telefonica and the Australian Telstra.^[3] By 2008 ZTE would be able to claim its customer base was truly global; it had made sales in 140 countries.^[3]

Products

A good deal of ZTE's customers are outside of China. For example, ZTE was awarded a contract from Viet Nam Railways valued at VND1 trillion (62.5 million USD) to upgrade and modernize the railway signal and telecommunications system.^[8] ZTE has also installed its Class 5 soft switch system in Global e Networks' London Docklands telecoms hub.^[9]

Some of ZTE's customers are Chinese, however. As late as 2005, big Chinese telephone companies were its top customers and in 2007 the company received the go-ahead to sell 3G TD-SCDMA equipment in China from China's Ministry of Information Industry.^[10]

Mobile phones

Spanish telecom company Telefónica de España will jointly manufacture and distribute 3G mobile handsets with ZTE.^[11] And Telus of Canada once offered the ZTE D90 cellphone with its innovative Fastap keypad^[12]

Legal controversies

The Philippine National Broadband Network controversy is a political affair that centers upon allegations of corruption regarding the proposed government-managed National Broadband Network (NBN) for the Philippines and the awarding of its construction to ZTE.^[13]

Norwegian telecommunications giant Telenor, the world’s 7th largest mobile operator, banned ZTE Corp. from October 13 until March 3, 2009 from "participating in tenders and new business opportunities because of an alleged breach of its code of conduct in a procurement proceeding.”^[14]

The Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (FEACC) of Ethiopia probed to uncover what is alleged to be a shady deal between an officer at the state-owned Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) and an unidentified representative of ZTE. It was recorded soliciting a two per cent kickback from the unknown ZTE staff member. In 2006, ZTE signed an agreement to provide US$1.5 billion worth of network equipment and related engineering services to Ethiopian Telecommunication Corp.^[15]

References

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