ZTE has trumpeted a 40 percent year-on-year growth in handset shipments during the first half of 2010, with a total of 28 million devices reaching the market globally. This was attributed to “increasing market demands from international markets, as well as a spike in 3G usage in China and smartphone popularity worldwide.” The figures mean the company is outperforming former handset giant Motorola, which shipped nearly 17 million units in the first half of the year, and Sony Ericsson, which shipped 21.5 million units. Significantly, research firm Strategy Analytics said that Sony Ericsson was the fifth biggest handset vendor globally during the second quarter of 2010, indicating that, if ZTE can continue its momentum, it stands to land a prestigious spot among the top handset players for the full year. That would be well ahead of its previously stated timeframe of achieving the goal in the next three years.

In the first half of 2010, ZTE shipped 17 million handsets outside of China, which represents 60 percent of total shipments. It has seen sharp growth in Europe, where volumes increased by 150 percent, with more than one million units sold in both France and the UK. The nascent 3G market in China is also providing an opportunity for ZTE, where its eleven million handsets sold represents year-on-year growth of 75%, and the company has also provided a “comprehensive” range of devices supporting CMMB mobile broadcast technology for operator China Mobile. ZTE has also recently launched its first device – Salute (pictured) – for US operator Verizon Wireless. On the smartphone side, in the first half of 2010 ZTE launched nearly ten Android devices, and “as a partner of Microsoft, ZTE is working closely on Windows Phone 7.0 product development” – it said that “in terms of engineering and design, ZTE’s handsets support various mainstream smartphone operating systems ranging from Linux to Windows, from Android to OMS, and from BMP to Meego”.