ZTE Corp, a mainland telecommunications equipment provider, said it expected earnings to rebound from a 40.4 per cent slump last year as it secured China Mobile's orders for third-generation mobile-telephone equipment.
Company president Yin Yimin said ZTE was awarded about half of China Mobile's 3G orders that had been offered so far.
The orders were for the provision of core network and base station equipment using the TD-SCDMA standard in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Xiamen.
'It is difficult to maintain a 50 per cent share for all the China Mobile's 3G orders as our competitors may catch up,' Mr Yin said.
'We have already received 3G orders worth two billion to three billion yuan from China Mobile and there will be more to come.'
Market sources have said that China Mobile will award about 26.7 billion yuan of orders for the development of its 3G services.
Last year, ZTE's sales increased 6.6 per cent to 23 billion yuan. However, net profit dropped 40.4 per cent to 767 million yuan. Domestic sales declined 7.7 per cent to 12.8 billion yuan, accounting for 55.7 per cent of total sales, compared with 64.3 per cent in 2005.