Around World

As one of the first Chinese telecoms equipment provider to pursue business in overseas markets, ZTE now  has about 50000 employees and 8,000 of them are working in about 100 representative offices around the world.

Since 1996, the company has provided its products and services to 135 countries and regions, serving major telecoms operators in Asia Pacific, South Asia, North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Through a combination of strategic marketing, differentiation, cost advantage, human resources and intellectual property management, ZTE has established firm commercial partnerships with over 500 operators around the world.

Research and Development

With more than 33% percent of the workforce dedicated to R&D and with 10 percent of annual revenues channelled to this field, ZTE has 16 R&D centres and Institutes across North America, Europe and Asia.

International standards such as CMM and CMMI are strictly applied across all ZTE R&D management processes. Using these scientific management mechanisms and shared technology platforms, ZTE has standardised its R&D processes, shortening R&D periods, reducing costs, optimising design flows and guaranteeing the performance of new products.

The company's commitment to innovation ensures that its products stay at the leading edge of modern communications technology.

By the end of 2007, ZTE had applied for around 12000 national or international patents, 90% out of which are innovation patents with associated intellectual property rights.

In 2000, ZTE launched the world's first CDMA mobile phone with detachable SIM card. This was followed in 2004 by the launch of the world's first CDMA-based digital trunking technology - GoTa (Global open Trunking architecture system) which included many technologies based on ZTE-owned intellectual property.

As a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions,ZTE plays an important role in the international telecoms community. The corporation is an active member of more than 50 international standardisation organisations and forums.

ZTE holds the positions of co-chairman on two ITU-T working groups and editor of ITU-T standards including NGN, optical transmission and network security.  As a member of 3GPP, ZTE has edited three standards involving 3G radio access networks and terminal systems. The corporation is also a board member of the WiMAX Forum.

ZTE has established strategic cooperation agreements with leading telecoms giants such as Portugal Telecom, France Telecom, Alcatel, Ericsson and Nortel in NGN and mobile systems, with Hutchison in 3G, and with Marconi in optical transmission systems.

The corporation has also launched joint laboratory partnerships with Texas Instruments, Intel, Agere Systems, HHNEC, IBM, Microsoft (China), Qualcomm, Huahong NEC and Tsinghua University. The company has undertaken technological research alliance projects with 50 academic institutions throughout China, where ZTE is also a fully fledged member of the China Communications Standardisation Association (CCSA).