EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: The head of Chinese vendor ZTE has told Mobile World Live that the company has ambitions to become “the best company in the world,” fuelled by increasing global demand for smartphones.

“Smartphones will be more and more important. And I think this year, ZTE’s revenue from smartphones will be much bigger than feature phones,” commented the company’s president and CEO Shi Lirong in an exclusive video interview.

In 2011, ZTE was the fourth-largest mobile manufacturer in shipment terms, and Lirong claims the company last year was “the fastest growing company in the telecom industry.” Its handset unit is growing faster than its other operations, with Lirong admitting in the interview that its networks business continues to “face some challenges” in the US market (mainly due to security concerns).

Elsewhere in the interview, Lirong comments on ZTE’s device strategy for LTE-based products, the booming tablet space, and its support of both Android and Windows Phone products.

View the full interview here.