China’s ZTE to bring high-end Android or Windows Phone to US in 2012

[Jun]

China-based handset manufacturer ZTE has big plans for its lineup in the US market next year, reports Fierce Wireless. The company announced this week that it is currently in talks with major US wireless carriers to bring LTE-enabled and high-end smartphones to The States.

“By 2015, we expect the U.S. to be the largest market for handsets for ZTE,” said Lixin Cheng, president of ZTE’s North American division, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

“With a similar feature set [to the iPhone], ZTE can offer an alternative,” Cheng added, saying that the ZTE option would be “more affordable” than an iPhone. The iPhone 4S has a starting price of $650, if purchased without the benefit of carrier discounts that come with signing a new two-year contract. With contract, the 16GB iPhone 4S costs $200.

The new ZTE phones will reportedly run on either Google’s Android operating system, or on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.

ZTE already has a presence in the US market, but so far the only phones they’ve released are of the lower-end variety, and are available on pre-paid networks, like Boost Mobile, MetroPCS and Cricket Wireless. AT&T is the only major national network that carriers ZTE handsets.

While it may seem as though the smartphone market is already over-crowded with options, ZTE knows how to boost its market share. According to research firm Strategy Analytics, the company recently surpassed Apple as the world’s No. 4 shipper of cellphones, having grown to a global cellphone market share of 4.7 percent during the third quarter of this year with its shipment of 18.5 million cellphones.

China’s ZTE to bring high-end Android or Windows Phone to US in 2012

 

[ao333]

I remember some Chinese ultranationalist posting here about BYD exporting e6 vehicles to the US by next year. We're a few days from that and the car hasn't even fixed its design flaws yet.

The Baidu execs also said that the Japanese operational deficit would be rounded up in 2 years. The company is still losing hard in Japan.

As for these smartphones, I think they will make it onto the US market by next year, but I doubt the sales will be strong. Smartphones are about prestige and Chinese brands will only damage that.

Hence buyers will likely be those who've never used smartphones but want to give it a try. I doubt its high-end segment would sell anything.

 

[S10]

It would be a very dumb strategy for them to target the high price market right at the start. They should take a page from Japan and South Korea. Occupy the lower price margins, then work your way up.

 

[Qasibr]

@S10 Time will tell...

Perhaps if they can manage to offer highly competitive features matching the top-end of the market, but undercut the other high-price competitors, they might make a great name for themselves.

Sometimes, Chinese manufacturers have a low-price&low-quality reputation to fight against, and by targetting at the higher end and establishing their reputation from the start(sorta like Apple did in 2007), they'll have an easier time competing in the cut-throat margin lower-end.

 

[ephone]

China indeed produces those LQ/LP ones. However, China also produces those HQ/HP ones. The problem is that certain people still want to pay LP for the HQ ones. That won't be possible. So they want those cheap so that they can only get the LQ ones.

@S10 Time will tell...

Perhaps if they can manage to offer highly competitive features matching the top-end of the market, but undercut the other high-price competitors, they might make a great name for themselves.

Sometimes, Chinese manufacturers have a low-price&low-quality reputation to fight against, and by targetting at the higher end and establishing their reputation from the start(sorta like Apple did in 2007), they'll have an easier time competing in the cut-throat margin lower-end.

 

[pluto]

so you guys still think making mobile phones with Android/WP is high tech?
not any more unless you have your own OS like apple.

so making mobile phones on Android/WP is like making PC/laptop with Windows/Intel inside. it's not high tech, it's low level.
then, no wonder, the industry will trans to China, just like IBM trans Thinkpad to Lenovo.
Google and Microsoft are dominators, guys.
i personally believe, one day, Microsoft will be cornered by Google. so you will see Android+ARM/Android+Intel in your PC, not only in mobile phones/touch pad.

and you will have to confess that U.S is great in innovation, you didn't see Google/Microsoft in a country out of U.S

---------- Post added at 10:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:32 AM ----------

so you guys still think making mobile phones with Android/WP is high tech?
not any more unless you have your own OS like apple.

so making mobile phones on Android/WP is like making PC/laptop with Windows/Intel inside. it's not high tech, it's low level.
then, no wonder, the industry will trans to China, just like IBM trans Thinkpad to Lenovo.
Google and Microsoft are dominators, guys.
i personally believe, one day, Microsoft will be cornered by Google. so you will see Android+ARM/Android+Intel in your PC, not only in mobile phones/touch pad.

and you will have to confess that U.S is great in innovation, you didn't see Google/Microsoft in a country out of U.S

 

[Rusty]

so you guys still think making mobile phones with Android/WP is high tech?
not any more unless you have your own OS like apple.

so making mobile phones on Android/WP is like making PC/laptop with Windows/Intel inside. it's not high tech, it's low level.
then, no wonder, the industry will trans to China, just like IBM trans Thinkpad to Lenovo.
Google and Microsoft are dominators, guys.
i personally believe, one day, Microsoft will be cornered by Google. so you will see Android+ARM/Android+Intel in your PC, not only in mobile phones/touch pad.

and you will have to confess that U.S is great in innovation, you didn't see Google/Microsoft in a country out of U.S

---------- Post added at 10:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:32 AM ----------

so you guys still think making mobile phones with Android/WP is high tech?
not any more unless you have your own OS like apple.

so making mobile phones on Android/WP is like making PC/laptop with Windows/Intel inside. it's not high tech, it's low level.
then, no wonder, the industry will trans to China, just like IBM trans Thinkpad to Lenovo.
Google and Microsoft are dominators, guys.
i personally believe, one day, Microsoft will be cornered by Google. so you will see Android+ARM/Android+Intel in your PC, not only in mobile phones/touch pad.

and you will have to confess that U.S is great in innovation, you didn't see Google/Microsoft in a country out of U.S

I don;t think you actually know how tech industry works.
There are 2 major components for most tech, and especially phones.
One is software and one is hardware.
In the case of Apple they make both (poorly IMHO),
but if everyone did that then this would also mean there would be literally thousands of mobile OS to program for, and that would basically kill off the app market.

The smarter thing to do would be to make the hardware and get an uniform platform for software such as Android or Windows.
To say that this is "low tech" tells me that you are clueless.
Hardware is extremely high tech. Features like 3g/LTE, HD capacitive screens, 1080p camera, etc are all hardware and ALL extremely high tech.

 

[Chrome Missiles]

Deleted..........

 

[qwerrty]

ZTE blade is very popular in europe. ZTE is the next HTC in the making..

ZTE Blade Touch Screen Handset Sales Pass the Two Million Mark

Expects handset sales to reach 80 million in 2011

29 June 2011, Shenzhen – ZTE Corporation (“ZTE&#8221 (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ), a publicly-listed global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, has now sold more than two million ZTE Blade handsets, and is one of the top best-selling smartphones in the world.

ZTE continues to challenge the market leaders in the handset market, and expects to ship more than 80 million handsets this year, up 60 million units in 2010.

The ZTE Blade was first launched in the UK in the second half of 2010, and is now available in over 30 countries and regions, including the UK, France, Greece, Spain, Poland and Turkey. It has also successfully penetrated Japan and Finland, the home markets of major ZTE competitors.

Launched as the Orange San Francisco in the UK, the ZTE Blade’s popularity actually exceeded that of the iPhone 4 in the UK at one stage in early 2011 according to online purchase tracking company Hotukdeals. The device was promoted aggressively with a special offer price of ￡79.99 in the Orange Retail stores over part of the Christmas holiday, along with a competition to win a trip to San Francisco. The Blade was one of Orange's best-selling handsets over this period. ZTE worked closely with Orange (Everything Everywhere) after identifying an empty market niche for smartphones priced between ￡79.99 and ￡159. The outcome of this activity was to deliver to market a device that was stylish, thinner and more fashionable for this price-conscious and trend-setting market segment.

In the annual handset opinion survey organised by the online XDA Developers forum, the ZTE Blade won a total of 24.66% votes, placing it first among the 32 handsets as judged by forum users.

The Blade handset’s popularity has also been highlighted by the hundreds of calls and emails received by ZTE asking when the next version of Android and an upgraded CPU would be available on the Blade.

In Japan, the Blade was launched as the Softbank Venus with Android 2.2. Late in the device’s development programme, Softbank decided that it should run Android 2.2, which was just being released at that time. ZTE’s research team integrated Android 2.2 into the device within a very tight timeframe, laying a solid foundation for Blade’s strong sales performance in Japan.

In Greece, the Blade has been operator Wind’s best selling smart phone since its launch in January. Monthly sales volumes of the Blade in Greece are around 3000 units, which makes that the Blade has altered the traditional market structure for Greek telecommunications.

In Finland, Blade sales exceeded sales of the most popular iPhone model in November and December 2010 and January 2011. Of interest too is that ZTE Blade owners are using their phones more intensively than others. The data traffic volume of Blade users in Finland has peaked at 700MB per month.

Building on its international success in the smart phone market, ZTE is strengthening its smart terminals product lines in China, aiming to build on its market lead at home. The ZTE V880 has been customised for China Unicom’s WCDMA network, and the Blade has been customised for China Telecom’s CDMA 2000 EVDO network and China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA network for launch in the next few months.

The Blade has been recognized in industry awards around the world, including winning awards as one of the Best Handsets by German magazine “Connect”, for Best Cost/Performance and Editors Choice by Greece’s “PC World”, and in the UK, Best Value Smartphone by “Smartphone Essentials” magazine and Best Buy by “The Sunday Times”. The Blade also won the awards for Europe’s Best Design and China’s Best Design of the Year before its launch.

*ttp://www.tracyandmatt.co.uk/blogs/index.php/zte-blade-touch-screen-handset-sales-pas-2011

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

I don;t think you actually know how tech industry works.
There are 2 major components for most tech, and especially phones.
One is software and one is hardware.
In the case of Apple they make both (poorly IMHO),
but if everyone did that then this would also mean there would be literally thousands of mobile OS to program for, and that would basically kill off the app market.

The smarter thing to do would be to make the hardware and get an uniform platform for software such as Android or Windows.
To say that this is "low tech" tells me that you are clueless.
Hardware is extremely high tech. Features like 3g/LTE, HD capacitive screens, 1080p camera, etc are all hardware and ALL extremely high tech.

apple doesn't manufacture nor hold a single patent on the hardware it has. the screens, processors and RF chips are all from other companies. its patents are on the software and the paint job.

 

[ao333]

apple doesn't manufacture nor hold a single patent on the hardware it has. the screens, processors and RF chips are all from other companies. its patents are on the software and the paint job.

This shows why Chinese who can't afford Iphones don't know anything about it.

Apple owns over 200 hardware component patents which is shared among its products. This includes the crucial high response time touch screen Apple produces for its Ipad and Iphone, distinguishing itself from its inferior HTC, Samsung, and Motorola counterparts.

I think you also do not know what design patents are. They ARE hardware patents for an industry like smartphones, as infringing design patent would lead to unsucessful production or emulation of the product.

I don't expect Chinese to understand this or what patents in general mean, however.

 

[pluto]

I don;t think you actually know how tech industry works.
There are 2 major components for most tech, and especially phones.
One is software and one is hardware.
In the case of Apple they make both (poorly IMHO),
but if everyone did that then this would also mean there would be literally thousands of mobile OS to program for, and that would basically kill off the app market.

The smarter thing to do would be to make the hardware and get an uniform platform for software such as Android or Windows.
To say that this is "low tech" tells me that you are clueless.
Hardware is extremely high tech. Features like 3g/LTE, HD capacitive screens, 1080p camera, etc are all hardware and ALL extremely high tech.

hmm.... maybe you're right. poor Google, they hired me...

 

[qwerrty]

This shows why Chinese who can't afford Iphones don't know anything about it.

Apple owns over 200 hardware component patents which is shared among its products. This includes the crucial high response time touch screen Apple produces for its Ipad and Iphone, distinguishing itself from its inferior HTC, Samsung, and Motorola counterparts.
.

the 200 patents you're talking about are mostly just: size, shape, weight, button position, etc..useless patents mainly just for trolling..

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

This shows why Chinese who can't afford Iphones don't know anything about it.

Apple owns over 200 hardware component patents which is shared among its products. This includes the crucial high response time touch screen Apple produces for its Ipad and Iphone, distinguishing itself from its inferior HTC, Samsung, and Motorola counterparts.

I think you also do not know what design patents are. They ARE hardware patents for an industry like smartphones, as infringing design patent would lead to unsucessful production or emulation of the product.

I don't expect Chinese to understand this or what patents in general mean, however.

lmao so you're telling me that a Samsung chip and Wintek screen is Apple's. Hey, don't tell me that, tell Samsung and Wintek that.

 

[qwerrty]

funny how this fruit is suing samsung left and right when depending on their components..

iphone-4 components

WiFi, bluetooth, GPS module - broadcom
A4/A5 processor with an ARM core - Samsung
DRAM and lash memory components - samsung
gyroscope - stmicro
IPS LCD display - LG
multitouch - china-germany TPK-balda, taiwanese wintek
touchscreen controller - texas instruments
audio - cirrus
baseband, transiver - infineon
RF- skyworks
chassis - foxconn