New partnership with JD.com and increased marketing investment set high expectations for solid growth
17 June 2015, Moscow – ZTE, a leading global mobile device maker, revealed that it expects smartphone sales in Russia to triple this year. This was announced on the same day that China’s largest online direct sales company, JD.com, chose ZTE as one of its first partners to sell smartphones on its new e-commerce platform for Russia.
“We’re proud to be chosen by JD.com as one of the first smartphone brands to support its e-commerce platform in Russia, a key market for ZTE,” said Jacky Zhang, CEO of Asia Pacific & Commonwealth of Independent States, ZTE Mobile Device. “We are committed to developing our brand and delivering innovative user experiences for our rapidly growing base of smartphone customers in Russia. To up our game, we have increased our marketing investment in Russia by 350 percent this year.”
ZTE’s affordable premium Blade S6 will be the first ZTE device to debut JD.com’s global e-commerce platform for Russia. Customers will be able to purchase an upgraded version of the Blade S6 preloaded with Eyeprint ID™ – a pioneering eye-based biometric solution from EyeVerify that allows users to unlock the Blade S6 with an eye scan. The Blade S6 with Eyeprint ID™ will be priced at an affordable $199.00 and will be available for immediate purchase when JD.com’s platform for Russia goes live on June 18.
In addition to JD.com, ZTE has a strong network of global and local partners in Russia, including online names, such as Yandex and AliExpress. Offline, over ten thousand retail outlets in Russia sell ZTE smartphones, including MegaFon, MTS, DNS, Svyaznoy and Beeline. On May 20, ZTE launched a month-long Yandex online campaign with local partners DNS and Megafon. Since the campaign launch, weekly sales of the Blade S6 have increased nearly fivefold.
While continuing to work with local channel partners in Russia, ZTE is also investing heavily to promote its own brand and will bring more of its star products to the Russia market. First quarter 2015 smartphone shipments to Russia were up 35 percent year-on-year and smartphone active users have exceeded 1.5 million.
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