ZTE Skate first launched in Europe with a splash at Madrid Fashion Week

16 September 2011, Shenzhen, China – ZTE Corporation (“ZTE”) (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ), a publicly-listed global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, has announced the first launch in Europe of its new flagship smartphone, the ZTE Skate, in association with Telefonica.

The Skate launch event is being held today in Spain, as part of Madrid Fashion Week.

The competitively priced Skate smartphone has a large 4.3 inch capacitive display and runs Android 2.3 - Gingerbread. It is a slimline 11.35 mm and weighs just 148g, with styling inspired by the skateboard and intended to reflect the young and energetic lifestyle of the handset’s target market.

“The Skate builds on the global success of the ZTE Blade smartphone,” said ZTE executive vice president and head of the Terminals Division Mr He Shiyou. “Like the ZTE Blade, the Skate brings a high quality smartphone experience to a significant proportion of the population who might otherwise find smartphones restrictively expensive.”

“ZTE is continuing to build its smartphone range, and we have committed 60 percent of the Terminal Division’s R&D resources to smart terminals,” said Mr He. “We plan to announce a total of 30 smartphone models before the end of 2011.”

ZTE will also hold the Asia Pacific Skate launch in Hong Kong in September, with launch activities following in European countries including the UK and France, in Asian countries including Malaysia, Indonesia and China, and in the US.

The ZTE Skate has an 800MHz application processor with a graphics accelerator chip, a single built-in 5MP auto-focus camera and GPS with A-GPS which enables fast initial acquisition of the device’s position.

The 4.3 inch TFT (thin film transistor) screen has a 480 x 800 resolution. The open source Android operating system gives users access to a wide variety of applications and provides a user-friendly interface with practical and powerful multimedia capabilities.

The Skate runs all major audio and video formats including MP3, AAC, MIDI, WCV and AMR audio, and MPEG4, H.263 and H.264 video. Multimedia capabilities are enhanced with the A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) and AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control Profile) Bluetooth profiles that enable high quality audio and video to be played through remote devices.

The handset works with GSM, GPRS and EDGE networks in the 900, 1800 and 1900Mhz bandwidths, and on HSDPA and UMTS networks in the 900 and 2100MHz bandwidths. Over HSDPA networks, data download speeds can be up to 7.2mbps.

In addition to the usual SMS, MMS, email and IM capabilities, it comes with a range of Google apps including the Google Chrome Lite browser, Google Maps, Google Search and Gmail.

ZTE’s strategic focus on the smartphone market, announced at Mobile World Congress in February 2011, has played a major part in the company achieving the No. 5 position among the world’s handset manufacturers. Smartphone sales in the same period were 400 percent up on the first half of 2010, with US sales up 300 percent.

The ZTE Skate is expected to build on the success of the ZTE Blade smartphone, which has been the company’s flagship product for the last 12 months. The Blade is sold in over 50 countries and has recently been the biggest selling Android smartphone in China, averaging more than 17,000 units per day.