ZTE rediscovers profit at the conclusion of a nightmare year

Chinese kit vendor ZTE actually managed to turn a profit in Q3 2018 now that everyone has stopped victimising it.

The RMB 564 million was still down 65% year-on-year, but compared to the utter car crash that has been its quarterly announcements in the intervening time, any kind of profit represents a pretty significant victory in its own right. The amount of profit was right in the middle of the guidance offered at the end of August and ZTE is clearly desperate to start talking about something other than its various indiscretions.

“ZTE’s major business are rapidly recovering with the negotiation and signing of new orders and the further implementation of existing orders,” said the earnings announcement. “Meanwhile, the company has resumed normal operations in R&D, production and logistics. Specifically, its production and purchasing capabilities have been back on track, and its R&D progress has kept pace with the target preset at the beginning of the year. Also, ZTE has fully restored its customer services.”

As you can see from the summary table below, despite claiming it was pretty much dead in the water as recently as May of this year, ZTE still managed to pull in enough business to keep the losses for the first nine months of the year under control. While there’s no question it was in serious trouble, these figures also suggest ZTE might have been hamming things up a bit in the search for the mitigation it eventually achieved.