Chinese-based company ZTE is planning to penetrate the U.S. market next year through launching a high-end smartphone by next year. This high-end smartphone would either be utilizing Google's Android or Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 as its OS.

This announcement was disclosed during a Wall Street Journal interview with Lixin Cheng, the president for ZTE North America. According to Cheng, this move was done with the company's prediction that by 2015, we expect the U.S. to be the largest market for handsets for ZTE." Cheng also disclosed that their planned high-end smartphone would have "similar features" with Apple's iPhone. Despite having similar features, ZTE's offering would be "more affordable" than the highly-priced iPhone 4. Apple's latest smartphone, iPhone 4S is sold with a selling price of US$650 without the two-year contract offered by U.S. carriers. If a user opts to buy iPhone 4S with the two-year contract, they would be able to purchase a 16GB iPhone 4S for only US$200.

ZTE already has a place in the U.S. market albeit a small one. So far, the phones that ZTE had released in the U.S. were considered as the "lower-end" variety and it is available through pre-paid networks. Boost Mobile, MetroPCS and Cricket Wireless are the pre-paid carriers for ZTE phones while AT&T is the only major national carrier for ZTE. This latest move by the company would enable them to enter the "high-end" market for smartphones with top competitors like Samsung Electronics Co., Apple Inc., HTC Corp., and Nokia Corp. ZTE currently has 10 offices and 3 R&D sites in the U.S. The company is also planning to bring in a branch of their manufacturing side in the U.S.

ZTE already has an established place in the Chinese smartphone market-a market that is considerably larger than the U.S. Now that they have set their sights in the U.S. market, ZTE is pulling all the stops in order to make their success in China similar with their U.S. venture. Based on a research done by Strategy Analysis, ZTE could have the chance to attain this goal as it achieved 4th place in terms of the number of cellphones shipped worldwide. ZTE had a shipment of 18.5 million cellphones with a market share of 4.7% during the third quarter of 2011.