ZTE president of global sales and SVP Xiao Ming (pictured, centre) hailed the company’s progress, announcing it signed 46 5G commercial contracts due to increased investment in R&D.

Speaking at a media roundtable in London, Xiao said the company had 35 commercial contracts at the end of  Q3 (ending September 2019), with the increase due to the company increasing R&D spend in phases from the average 10 per cent of global revenue to 14.6 per cent by September 2019. The company is aiming to increase its investment rate to 15 per cent.

In the nine months ending September 2019, the company spent CNY9.35 billion ($1.33 billion), compared to CNY 8.52 billion in the same period in 2018.

Xiao also highlighted ZTE registered 2,561 families of 5G patents to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, the third most by a vendor. The company was the largest customer-provided equipment manufacturer globally in Q3 2019, IHS Markit research showed.

Detailing a refresh of network equipment, Xiao said ZTE’s latest generation of active antenna units are lighter and can be deployed by a single person. They also consumes less power and have a smaller footprint.

In other updates, Xiao added the company will launch ten 5G smartphones this year alongside 15 different 5G products.

He acknowledged the vendor faces political challenges surrounding its cybersecurity, but pledged to carry on the company’s mantra of transparency.

“ZTE is active in all areas, we’re actively engaging with different regulators and authorities with all their enquiries”, he said.

“We are very open and transparent, we’ve set up three cybersecurity labs in Nanjing, Brussels and Rome. They provide access to products and source codes of our products to all authorities.”