In this day and age, if you want to be successful you have to have a lot of things but, you can’t do anything without one very important thing – cold hard cash. And lots of it. A lot of the time, a good investment is what companies need to become truly successful, and a lot of money is what it takes to enter new markets. ZTE has had a good year – maybe not here in the States – and they’ve risen to the Top 5 Smartphone Manufacturers in the World. Which is no mean feat and the Top 10 list is one that not even Motorola make it onto anymore.
ZTE have just been awarded a massive $20 Billion loan from the Chinese Government, with the main focus being to help them gain a foothold overseas. This is a hell of a lot of money for any company to get loaned to them and when it comes to ZTE, this sort of money is really going to help with a lot of things, including the development of more and more devices and getting their feet through the door of the International market. To put things into perspective, $20 Billion is the same amount of money that the Japanese carrier Softbank paid for a 70% share of Sprint.
The company do have a statement to give but, it’s hardly transparent:
“The principal terms of the agreement include the provision by CDB of a $20 billion facility for cooperation, comprising financing facilities for the company’s overseas projects and credit facilities for the company. The agreement forms the framework of business cooperation for an effective period of five years,”
So, it looks like ZTE have a 5-year plan all funded and ready to go. We’re wondering what ZTE are going to do with the money but, if I were to take a wild guess it’d be based around manufacturing and R&D facilities. Not to mention, setting up headquarters all over the globe and establishing a worldwide presence. The Chinese company don’t make fantastic phones or anything like that but they have been known to bring some good budget offerings to Cricket in the past. Let’s hope that with a big cash infusion like this that we see more of them over in the States and actually see some proper devices and not just cheap offerings.
[Source: Reuters]