13 September 2017, San Francisco – ZTE, a leading global mobile device maker today announced that Lixin Cheng, CEO of ZTE Mobile Devices and member of CTIA’s Board of Directors and Executive Committee, spoke at the US-China Summit during Mobile World Congress Americas (MWCA) 2017. Lixin Cheng shared ZTE’s successful experience working in the US and China on 5G, and provided an outlook of the future of collaboration through innovation which is expected to benefit not only China and the US, but the world as a whole.

Enriching US-China Innovative Collaboration Leads World’s Innovation Trend

In 2016, China spent 50 billion dollars in the US for technology investments, and in the reverse direction, the US invested 92 billion dollars in China. Investing billions of dollars to expand telecommunications each year, the US and China share similar ideas for the next generation of the Internet and innovative strategies.

In the telecommunications industry, China has 1.32 billion mobile phone users, spending 53 billion dollars in telecoms capital expenditures each year, of which 34 billion dollars is expected to be spent each year on 5G in 2020. Meanwhile, the US has 327 million mobile phone users, spends 73 billion dollars each year on telecom, and is estimated to spend 45 billion dollars on 5G in 2020. In the Internet industry, China has 771 million Internet users, of which 695 million are mobile Internet users. By comparison, the US has 286 million Internet users, including 225 million mobile Internet users. This huge amount of consumer demand in the telecommunication and Internet services requires further collaboration between both countries.

From Domestic to International, ZTE Grows as the Backbone

So far, the accumulated R&D investment of ZTE is approximately 15 billion dollars, and the total R&D investment in the first half of 2017 is about 1 billion dollars (12.4% of revenue).

In China, ZTE is the leading LTE vendor with over one-third of the market share in the 4G network. ZTE also accounted for one-third of the global shipments of TDD-LTE eNB. In addition, ZTE LTE EPC was deployed in more than 90% provinces in China. In the phase II eMBB test scenarios of China’s 5G program, ZTE’s 5G low-frequency band (3.5GHz) cell peak throughput exceeded 19 Gbps and the high-frequency band (26GHz) single UE throughput exceeded 13Gbps.

ZTE has nearly 81,000 employees globally, including 30,000 specialists for R&D, 107 global affiliates, 6 regional customer support centers and 46 local customer support centers. From 2010 to 2016, ZTE is the only Chinese company that ranked in the top third for seven consecutive years (includes three times at number one) on the PCT patent application list.

Multi-strategy Helps ZTE Seize the US Market

In the US, ZTE spends 2.6 billion dollars per year on purchasing products and technologies from US companies. It is now the 4^th biggest vendor with a market share of 12.2%, maintaining long-term cooperation with all of the major carriers with 33 million active users in the US. ZTE builds on its base of support in the US by hiring locally - 80% of the employees hired in the US are local.

Have the Insight of the Needs of 5G and Promote the Development of 5G

ZTE is working closely with governments and associations in the US and China for 5G, since both countries are in the leading position for the next generation of wireless technologies. As the only Chinese council member of CTIA (the top Wireless Association in the US), ZTE is helping to drive standardization of spectrum and network technology for 5G.

As the company which is the first to successfully launch Massive MIMO commercial products, ZTE has more than 3,000 experts engaged in 5G R&D work. It's also the pioneer in promoting the sustainable Pre5G commercialization in a large scale thanks to the deployment of exceeding 60 Pre5G networks in over 40 countries worldwide. In addition, ZTE satisfies the technical demands of carriers by knowing carriers’ needs, personalizing products and promoting the implementation of 5G standards.