ZTE plans an assault on the UK phone market

CHINESE PHONE MAKER ZTE has big plans for the UK market and was in London Wednesday evening to share these with the world - well, a handful of IT press, anyway.

The firm has signed a deal with distributor Brightpoint, which will see ZTE-branded unlocked handsets hit the high street and online stores in the coming months. Specifics of the devices were not given.

ZTE has already launched the Blade, rebranded as the San Francisco and available from mobile operator Orange in the UK. It will launch the Skate handset by the fourth quarter, which will be sold as the Monte Carlo by mobile operator Orange but might also be available as one of the SIM-free devices.

The Skate is a bigger and faster version of the San Francisco with a 4.3-inch 480x800 touchscreen and an 800MHz processor running Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Wu Sa, the firm's UK director of mobile device operations, was keen to play up the innovative nature of the company, with 10 per cent of revenues ploughed back into R&D.

He added that ZTE is aiming to sell 80 million handsets worldwide this year, a 33 per cent increase on the 60 million sold last year.

The INQUIRER went along to the ZTE event, held at the Ice Bar, which Sa said was appropriate for such 'cool' products. You can see us wearing some very 'cool' outfits in the picture below.

We knew there would have to be a connection between ZTE and the choice of venue, and we were wondering if it was something to do with Skate-ing on thin ice with its sales targets.

Whether the Skate will actually appear in the fourth quarter remains to be seen. Maybe it will go the same way as the goodie bags which Sa promised for all attendees, but failed to materialise. Perhaps they got stuck in the ice. µ