ZTE eyes Europe, Asia 4G orders to gain market share

Chinese telecoms equipment vendor ZTE is seeking orders for faster wireless systems in Europe, Southeast Asia and South America, in a bid to gain market share and break into the global top three list in two years' time.

ZTE, currently the world's fifth largest vendor for wireless network equipment, is bidding for 4G LTE equipment contracts with "high quality carriers," said Liang Ming, a manager at ZTE's 4G business, in a Bloomberg report Wednesday.

The company plans to increase its global market share among carriers using LTE technology by 15 percent to 20 percent next year, the manager said.

"We are in talks with major carriers," Liang pointed out, adding these carriers did not bear high risks in their finance and operations.

The report noted earlier this month, ZTE's chairman Hou Weigui said the company aims to be one of the world’s top-three suppliers of wireless-network equipment in the next two years--leapfrogging Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens.

Pierre Ferragu, a London-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., told Bloomberg that ZTE's "attempts to win share with aggressive pricing and financing" meant orders were most of the time with challenged operators in deep need for financing, which usually did not turn into good quality business.

In ZTE's third quarter results anounced in October, the vendor posted its first quarterly loss of 1.96 billion yuan (US$310 million). This was attributed to tighter margins, project delays and accounting changes in China.

Last week, ZTE announced an additional US$30 million investment in the United States to enhance its presence there.