ZTE and Huawei, both Chinese manufacturers that specialize in creating affordable products, have recently been denied equipment deals with the carriers in the US. This is because the US government fears that they represent a security risk to the US infrastructure, but it appears that both companies will not be giving up that easily.
“Although we have been blocked by the U.S. government, we just can’t give up breaking into the U.S. market because its size is huge and per-capita spending is high,” Richard Ye, senior director of wireless-product operations, told Dow Jones Newswires. Ye’s comments appear to reverse what ZTE Chairman Hou Weigui said in an interview with Dow Jones in late October, in which he indicatd that the political obstacles to Chinese vendors in the United States were too difficult to overcome.
It’s without doubt that the US market is one of the bigger and more important markets that any company worth their salt will be interested in breaking into. Both ZTE and Huawei already have products in the US, but unfortunately they appear to be mostly available on regional carriers as opposed to the big four (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile).
In a move to earn the trust of the US government and to show goodwill, Ye has also stated that ZTE will not be selling network equipment to countries such as Iran, so as “not to annoy the US”. Will this new strategy work out for ZTE? Will we start seeing the major carriers start to offer more ZTE and Huawei devices? It looks like we will have to wait and see.
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