ZTE India reveals plans for big smartphone push in 2014

Chinese telecom equipment major ZTE says it is targeting a revenue of USD 800 million for the year 2014 from India as telcos are likely to spend more on the back of growth revival in the sector.

The company, which has already clocked USD 400 million in revenues till October this year, is hopeful of increasing that figure to USD 500 million by the end of this year.

"Telecom companies expect clarity (in rules) after the elections and by then, the auction would have also been completed. Telecom companies have already started preparing and we expect next year to be good," ZTE India CEO Xu Dejun told reporters at a press event in New Delhi on Friday.

ZTE India already manages the 4G network of Bharti Airtel in Kolkata and Chandigarh and select circles of Sistema Shyam for its CDMA network. The company is also likely to bid for Bharti Airtel's 3G service network upgradation deal.

Xu Dejun added that refarming would also help the company as telecom operators look at revamping their networks to better utilise the available spectrum.

Of the targeted USD 800 million revenue in 2014, the company expects the telecom business to contribute around USD 500 million, with the rest coming from its terminal (handsets and data cards) business. In May this year, ZTE had partnered Pune-based Calyx to enter the handset market in India. Since then, it has introduced a slew of smartphones, including the ZTE Grand X Quad Lite and the ZTE Blade G2 (Review I Pictures).

ZTE, which is already the leader in the data card segment with over 60 percent marketshare in the country, aims to grab a bigger pie of the smartphone market in 2014. The company hopes to ship at least two million smartphones in India next year.