4G sales boost ZTE 2014 full-year net profit by 94 percent

Chinese telco and handset maker ZTE announced that its full-year net profit for 2014 jumped by 94 percent to 2.63 billion yuan ($4.23 billion), as a result of higher sales of 4G network equipment and smartphones.

The company also reported that total revenue rose 8.3 percent to 81.5 billion yuan. Revenue from international operations was 40.9 billion yuan, accounting for 50.2 percent of total revenue, while operations in China contributed 40.6 billion yuan in revenue.

The results are in line with preliminary results announced in January, where the company said its profits would be nearly double by the end of December 2014.

ZTE attributed the growth to its 4G solutions, including Cloud Radio, QCell, UBR, and Magic Radio, alongside strengthening its position in China's 4G market through 5G technology research. The company said it believes it will become the first company in the industry to offer pre-5G base stations.

ZTE's mobile devices division also showed growth, with the company highlighting that its 4G smartphone and 3G mobile phone sales internationally drove much of it.

During Mobile World Congress in March, the company announced that it was in fourth place for smartphone shipments, and had secured 7 percent of share in the US market in 2014.

For cloud computing, the company said it achieved growth in the financial services market globally, which helped its datacentre products business.

Looking ahead, the company said its focus will be on the Internet of Things, an area in which it believes it has plenty of growth opportunities.

"Growth in the traditional telecom market is facing a bottleneck, but due to the high-growth data services, carriers are also transitioning to internet services," the company said.

ZTE saw similar results during the first half of the 2014 financial year, after saying it was seeing strong earnings from 4G infrastructure operations.