By Dave McQueen

ZTE ushers in new Era

ZTE hopes to help pave the way to becoming third largest handset vendor by 2015 with an array of eight new devices launched at MWC 2012. Although a global aspiration, the new devices will mainly target users in Europe, Japan, the USA and China.

Leading the way for ZTE is the Era, an Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) smartphone dubbed as “one of the thinnest quad-core smartphones on the market today”. The ZTE Era handset packs high definition multimedia capabilities with a 4.3 inch QHD screen. Further announcements on Android include the Kis and Acqua models with 3.5-inch and 4.0-inch screens respectively, providing additional price-points on Android 2.3 and the ZTE Blade II with an upgraded 1.0GHz processor. ZTE also announced the ZTE PF112 with a 4.5-inch high density (HD) screen, and 7-inch and 10.1-inch quad-core tablets for the European market. In tandem with the device launches is the first appearance of the ZTE MiFavor UI smartphone user interface for Android.

Available sometime in 2Q12, ZTE also announced its second Windows Phone 7 smartphone, the ZTE Orbit which has HD Voice and a 5Mpx autofocus camera with LED flash. The ZTE Orbit follows the ZTE Tania running Windows Phone, which launched in the UK in January and is shipping in the next few weeks.

ZTE has already gone some way towards its dream of breaking the top 3 as the company’s terminal shipments grew by 50% in 2011 and achieved a 400% increase in smartphone shipments, albeit from a small base, worldwide. This new, wide range of devices and user features should help the company drive that momentum, notably in the mid- to high-end, into 2012 and beyond. Led by the ZTE Era, this latest device line-up destined for major global markets across price tiers will lead to a new era for ZTE branded devices with every chance that the 2015 goal may come earlier than the company thinks.