ZTE unveils plans to dominate UK mobile phone market

ZTE has become the latest Chinese hardware manufacturer to stake its claim to the UK market, announcing a tie-up with distributor Brightpoint which will see the firm's branded handsets hit the high street and online stores in the coming months.

The handset maker, which announced ambitious plans in April to increase its ‘terminal' shipment volumes and sales revenue by nearly 50 per cent in the first quarter, said at a press event on Tuesday night that it aims to sell 80 million devices worldwide before the year is out, up from 60 million last year.

ZTE's UK director of mobile device operations, Wu Sa, said that the company will plough 10 per cent of revenues back into R&D, and that these ambitious plans are just the tip of the iceberg for the UK market.

Sa was keen to play up the firm's intention to make smartphones a "mass market reality" in the UK, and said that its Skate handset will be available by the fourth quarter.

However, V3.co.uk posted a mixed review of the ZTE Skate, noticing a few design flaws when we got our hands on a prototype a few months ago.

Gartner research in April predicted that smartphones will continue to break into the mainstream, and are expected to hit the one billion sales mark in 2015 with around 48 per cent running Android.

ZTE is not the only Chinese firm looking to make a serious play for the UK market. Rival Huawei recently announced plans to launch a range of own brand high-end smartphones in the next 12 months.