Advertisement

ZTE expects to launch high-end LTE smartphones in the US by mid-2012

ZTE's no small company by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still largely an unknown in the US. The phone manufacturer has been focused on selling lower-end devices in the prepaid market -- often with carrier-specific branding -- but is now hoping to steer the ship in a different direction. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, North American president Lixin Cheng mentioned the company intends to bring LTE-capable high-end smartphones to the US at some point in the middle of next year. While he didn't cough up details on availability, he said that the vendor is in talks with all four of the country's national carriers and would likely be based on either Android or Windows Phone. Cheng also stated that he expects the US to be ZTE's "largest market for handsets" by 2015. Lofty goals, of course, but definitely reachable.