ZTE says no interest in buying Nortel assets

Oct. 8, 2009 (China Knowledge) - ZTE Corp<000063><0763>, China's largest listed telecommunications manufacturer and wireless solutions provider, has no interest in buying the GSM assets that Nortel Networks Corp has put up for sale, a company executive said at the ongoing ITU Telecom World 2009 held in Geneva.

However, the executive didn't rule out the possibility of any future acquisitions, adding that ZTE will remain extremely cautious in future acquisitions considering the current market conditions.

Nortel Networks said last week that it, along with other units of its parent, will sell substantially all of its global operations using the GSM communication standard by "open auction".

The acquisition of Nortel's GSM-related assets may be a good option for the Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer, which are strong in CDMA and TD-SCDMA technology, according to some analysts.

ZTE plans to sell 60 million handset units this year, and the figure is expected to rise to 80 million and 100 million in 2010 and 2011, according to Xiong Hui, vice general manager of ZTE's cell phone division.

The Chinese company targets to be one of the world's top 4 cell phone manufacturers in the coming three years.