Industry analyst Frost & Sullivan is predicting that ZTE, which provides telecommunications equipment and network solutions, will become one of the top three global GSM vendors in countries that currently lack GSM coverage during 2009.
The prediction comes in Frost & Sullivans Global GSM Market Analysis report, which finds that GSM and UMTS are still dominating the global mobile communications market, accounting for 83.5% of global mobile communications subscribers. GSM shipments attained a high level of 3.5 million carrier frequencies in 2008, with the slight slow-down from 2007 being largely attributed to the global financial crisis and 3G market growth.
In terms of all new carrier frequency shipments, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia-Siemens, ZTE and Alcatel-Lucent accounted for 31%, 27%, 16%, 15% and 9% of the global market respectively in 2008, while the remaining vendors took up 2% of the market share. Statistics indicate that, despite a slowdown in GSM network establishments in the worldwide market, ZTE has nevertheless registered fast GSM shipment growth for three
consecutive years. With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 120% in the past three years, ZTE's GSM equipment shipments have been the fastest growing amongst industry players. The report predicts that ZTE will overtake Nokia-Siemens to become one of the top-three global GSM equipment vendors in 2009. Nokia-Siemens' market share fell significantly from its high of 35% of the global market, to 16% in 2008.