China's ZTE aims to be the one of top 3 GSM vendors in this year

Based on the huge growth experienced in last two years(2007-08), China based telecom base equipment vendor ZTE poised to occupy one among the top three position in the worldwide GSM shipment ranking. Presently ZTE is ranked 4th in this market. Ericsson hold number one position in this market followed by Nokia-Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent.

Last year the company's GSM product shipments have increased nearly 100% year-on-year, representing 15% of the global market.

ZTE makes base stations that support GSM/UMTS dual-mode operation, and SDR (Software Define Radio)-based base station series, and is also 4G ready.

ZTE GSM equipment is deployed by 60 operators in more than 50 countries, which has resulted into 200 million mobile phone connections. From 2003 to 2007, ZTE's global GSM market share had increased more than 100%.

ZTE has already applied for over 3,000 GSM patents and closely interacting with international standards organizations such as ETSI, 3GPP and GSA. Reliance, and Hutchison are the major customers for ZTE in India.