Telecom Lead Asia: After clocking more than $610 million revenue in 2012, ZTE India faces huge exodus at a time when the Chinese telecom equipment maker is looking for revival.
Economic Times on Friday reported that ZTE India CEO Cai Liangjun and enterprise business director Victor Wangyang are likely to soon relocate to the parent company’s Shenzhen headquarters.
ZTE services business head Xu Dejun is likely to become the new CEO of Indian business.
“As we work towards taking ZTE’s India growth story to the next level, some amount of management restructuring may become imperative in the near future,” said a ZTE India spokesman.
Meanwhile, ZTE India has lost three senior executives in the rank of vice president. Over three weeks, Mandeep Sharma, Abhay Deshmukh and Dinesh Gupta, who were key members of the company’s services vertical, have put in their papers.
Recently, ZTE said it will exit from non-viable telecom markets. ZTE will eliminate offices that record loss for a long time with limited prospect of a turnaround. It will also consolidate products that offer little development potential. Exercise headcount control and conduct organizational change is also in the pipeline.
ZTE’s main rivals are benefiting from the huge exodus.
According to media report, Sharma may be joining Nokia Siemens Networks India while Deshmukh is moving to Ericsson. Gupta, in turn, who was managing ZTE India’s network operations centre (NOC) in Gurgaon, is likely to join a power company.
ZTE has experienced turbulent market conditions in India after the Supreme Court last year quashed 122 mobile permits issued by former communications minister A Raja. Mobile phone companies like STel, Loop Mobile and Sistema Shyam, which lost their licences, were among ZTE’s major customers.
Executives aware of the developments claim that post-restructuring, ZTE India will focus on four key customers – BSNL, Bharti Airtel, Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications – for managing and maintaining their mobile networks.
READ MORE: Meanwhile, ZTE, which eclipsed Apple’s handset shipments in China last year, plans to double its share in the iPhone-maker’s home market by adding devices specifically tailored for individual US mobile operators.
