ZTE

ZTE Corporation is a Chinese partially state-owned technology company that specializes in telecommunication. Founded in 1985, ZTE is listed on both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges.

ZTE's core business is wireless, exchange, optical transmission, data telecommunications gear, telecommunications software, and mobile phones. ZTE primarily sells products under its own name, but it is also an OEM.

The company has faced criticism in the United States, India, and Sweden over ties to the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that could enable mass surveillance. In 2017, ZTE was fined for illegally exporting U.S. technology to Iran and North Korea, in violation of international economic sanctions. In April 2018, after the company failed to properly reprimand the employees involved, the U.S. Department of Commerce banned U.S. companies (semiconductors) from exporting to ZTE for seven years. The ban was lifted in July 2018 after ZTE replaced its senior management, and agreed to pay additional fines and establish an internal compliance team for 10 years. In June 2020, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated ZTE a national security threat. In 2023, the European Commission banned ZTE from providing telecommunication services.

ZTE, initially founded as Zhongxing Semiconductor Co., Ltd in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, in 1985, was incorporated by a group of investors associated with China's Ministry of Aerospace Industry. In March 1993, Zhongxing Semiconductor changed its name to Zhongxing New Telecommunications Equipment Co., Ltd with capital of RMB 3 million, and created a new business model as a "state-owned and private-operating" economic entity. ZTE made an initial public offering (IPO) on the Shenzhen stock exchange in 1997 and another on the Hong Kong stock exchange in December 2004.

While the company initially profited from domestic sales, it vowed to use proceeds of its 2004 Hong Kong IPO to further expand R&D, overseas sales to developed nations, and overseas production. Making headway in the international telecom market in 2006, it took 40% of new global orders for CDMA networks^{[verification needed]} topping the world CDMA equipment market by number of shipments. That same year also saw ZTE find a customer in the Canadian Telus and membership in the Wi-Fi Alliance.^{[better source needed]}

By 2009, the company had become the third-largest vendor of GSM telecom equipment worldwide, and about 20% of all GSM gear sold throughout the world that year was ZTE branded. As of 2011, it holds around 7% of the LTE patents.

In 2022, US court rules ZTE to end the five-year probation from a 2017 guilty plea.

In 2023, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)'s Annual PCT Review ranked ZTE's number of patent applications published under the PCT System as 11th in the world, with 1,738 patent applications being published during 2023.