In the MWC 2016, ZTE unveiled two new models in its high-volume, value-priced line and unveiled a new sports marketing partnership with Spanish soccer club, Seville, taking a page from a strategy that has turned ZTE into the 4th largest U.S. smart phone vendor. ZTE sponsors five professional basketball teams, including the Golden State Warriors, last year’s NBA champions, and pro golfer Danny Lee, which has driven its U.S. brand recognition.
China’s ZTE, known as the world’s sixth largest smart phone maker, is introducing new, value-priced phone models and at the same time aims to sell between 60 million and 70 million devices overall this year, an executive said on Monday. ZTE Senior Director of Mobile Devices, Waiman Lam said in an interview at the Mobile World Congress that the company is cautiously targeting growth of around 60 million units, which would mark a 7 percent rise in unit sales from 2015. The higher end of its target range, 70 million units, would represent around 20 percent growth over 2015.
The Blade V7 sports a 5.2-inch screen in a metallic case for single-hand use and both front and rear 13-megapixel cameras. Instead of fingerprint security, it offers ZTE’s retinal eye-scan feature and is expected to go on sale in summer. The Blade V7 packs in a MediaTek MT6753 chipset with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage that is expandable via a microSD card slot. It features a 13MP rear camera with PDAF and dual-tone LED flash. On the front sits a 5MP front facing camera. The handset packs in support for 4G LTE, 3G, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, USB OTG, Micro-USB, and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, all powered by a 2500 mAh battery. The Blade V7 comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
The Blade V7 Lite offers a 5-inch HD display that can be operated with one hand and a fingerprint scanner. It will initially be sold in Russia and in coming months in markets including Mexico, Spain, Germany and Thailand. The V7 Lite sports a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6735P processor coupled with 2GB of RAM. The smart phone features 8MP sensors for both the front and the back cameras with the remaining specs matching the Blade V7.
The company has not yet disclosed pricing for the new models, but Lam told Reuters that the larger of the two, the Blade V7, will sell for around 250 euros ($277.95) and that the Lite will go for less than 200 euros, or even as low as 150 euros
