Telecom Lead Asia: ZTE Telecom has announced its long term strategies for growth in the Indian ICT market.
The Chinese ICT major has clocked $700 million revenue in 2012, reflecting an increase over the past two years. ZTE did not reveal its India revenue for 2011 and 2010.
Xu Dejun, CEO for ZTE India, said: “India is an important market for us. In 2013, we have renewed our focus on key customers, our service business and terminals.”
Further, ZTE’s enterprise business is expanding. The company focuses on partner initiatives to build more synergy. ZTE is working on projects for education, hospitality and smart cities, according to Xu Dejun.
Before being elevated as India CEO, Xu Dejun has worked as ZTE Africa’s head of international projects, as ZTE India’s head of technical sales and as the senior vice president of ZTE India’s Indian Engineering Service Center.
According to industry sources, ZTE is in the process of cutting down on resources in India due to its ability to bag major orders from Indian telecom operators. The February 2, 2012 Supreme Court order had affected ZTE’s Indian business from telecom sector.
ZTE, as part of focusing on profitability, is planning to shut down nonviable offices in different telecom markets. ZTE is planning to review its strategies to improve performance in different telecom markets.
The restructuring exercise is line with ZTE’s likely net loss of $279.2 million in the first 9 months of 2012.
The Chinese telecom equipment maker, which is under the scrutiny of the US Intelligence Committee on security issues, will review its strategy on products and operations in different regions. ZTE is facing security related issues in India as well.
In the recent past, ZTE’s main order came from Airtel for its LTE rollout in Kolkata.
Recently, ZTE worked with Beetel Teletech to expand its data product portfolio, into the enterprise space.
In 2013, ZTE will launch a range of terminals including 3G data cards and smartphones in India to achieve 30 percent increase in smartphone revenue.
Globally, ZTE is the fourth largest smartphone player.
Arvind Krishna
editor@telecomlead.com
