Telecom Lead Asia: ZTE announced the launch of ZTE Grand Era, its slimmest quad-core smartphone, and Grand X LTE (T82), a 4.3-inch dual-core smartphone powered by Qualcomm MSM8960 chipset running on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in the Philippines.
The Grand Era is ZTE’s latest flagship smartphone. It contains a PC-class Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core CPU and operates on the advanced Android 4.0 platform upgradeable to Android OS Jelly Bean. It also has 3D acceleration capacity, an 8M-pixel BSI AF HD camera and a 4.5-inch HD retina screen at a resolution of 1280×720.
With an average thickness of 8.6mm and a thickness of 7.9mm at its slimmest section, it is currently the world’s thinnest available quad-core handset. The Grand Era also adheres to an expert-class hardware and software safety protection standard called Palm Manager, which was independently developed by ZTE.
“The Grand Era has opened the door to the quad-core era for ZTE smartphones,” said ZTE Philippines president Chen Yi. “We believe these products will produce a butterfly effect across the industry and market.”
The addition of Grand Era to the current line-up of ZTE smartphones is expected to strengthen ZTE’s position as a serious player in the local mobility business. Early this quarter, MSI-ECS, the exclusive distributor of ZTE mobile in the Philippines also announced the Grand Series line-up with the Kis V970, Blade III V889M and Grand X V970M.
“The Grand Series has many distinguishable features that set it apart from other smartphones in the Philippine. The handsets satisfy the demand for high-quality and affordable smartphones across the country,” said Chen.
ZTE is the fourth largest smartphone manufacturer in the world according to IDC. ZTE has grown its smartphone sales of late thanks primarily to an uptick in lower-cost smartphone sales in many emerging markets. The company has traditionally been dependent on sales of phones to China, where the company is based. However, notable progress was made in North America last quarter.
Smartphone vendors shipped 179.7 million units in 3Q12 compared to 123.7 million units in 3Q11. ZTE shipped 7.5 million units in 3Q12 and grabbed a market share 4.2 percent, behind Samsung, Apple and RIM which topped the first three positions respectively.
