By Adekunle Adekoya

ZTE Corporation, a Chinese telecommunications solutions provider  has posted  a net profit of US$90.5 million for the nine-month period ending September 2013, a 132 per cent from a year earlier.

This, according to analysts is cheering news as the company posted a loss of US$ 439 million in 2012 when it presented preliminary results for that year. The company reassured its stakeholders of instant return to profitability in the first quarter of 2013 after the sale of equity interest in Shenzhen ZNV Technology, which was expected to bring an income of between US$124.2 million to US$133.3 million.

For the first three quarters of 2013 (January to September), net profit attributable to shareholders was around US$90.5 million. Revenue dropped 10% to around US$ 9 billion, with the company posting a quarterly profit after extraordinary items in the July-September period, ending a negative sequence that began in the second_quarter of 2012. ZTE forecasts the company will post a full_year net profit later in the year.

The company exercised stringent control over selling, general and administrative expenses, resulting in strong improvement in cash flow in the third quarter. The positive operational cash flow reported in the third quarter followed a sequence of negative cash flow in the July_September periods in 2009 to 2012.

During the reporting period, capital investment by operators in the global telecommunications industry remained sluggish, with spending focused on 4G networks and the construction of broadband networks, and their ancillary transmission networks. There was also progress in  the development of emerging sectors such as cloud computing and the Internet of Things.

Internationally, ZTE continued to focus its efforts in major and globally leading carriers, and secured traction in key sectors such as enterprise and government ICT solutions, services and mobile devices, while consolidating its share of the telecommunications network infrastructure market.

ZTE has operated in Nigeria for close to 10 years with stable, long term partnerships with the Federal Government and major private telecommunications operators.

It is a major equipment vendor to mobile phone operators including MTN, Glo and Etisalat. The company is currently concluding plans to introduce its top_end  smartphones into the Nigerian market.