ZTE to produce high-end smartphones for US consumers in mid-2012
Have you ever heard of ZTE? No? Well, that's probably because the company, while incredibly hot and popular in China, has hardly any presence in the US, aside from its a few dumbphones on carriers like MetroPCS and Boost Mobile.
But ZTE wants to change all that, and today, the company's North American President, Lixin Cheng, was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. During the interview, Cheng stated that at least one high-end smartphone will reach the United States by mid-2012, and it will be capable with 4G LTE networks from our carriers.
Cheng also believes that, by 2015, the US will be ZTE's largest market, meaning that the company will most likely start bringing more high-end handsets to more of our carriers, as well.
ZTE's also pleasing more US citizens with the fact that it's still in discussions with carriers on whether to use Android and/or Windows Phone 7. I think that ZTE will choose both operating systems, since it obviously wants to take our market by storm.
More competition is always better, and with ZTE not planning to release cheap and cruddy handsets, I expect some even bigger things to happen in 2012 than we had already planned.
[LA Times]
