Zte had a miserable first half of 2018. Can betting on 5G turn it around?

Recently, ZTE released its 2018 half-year report.

According to the report, ZTE’s revenue in the first half of 2018 was 39.434 billion yuan, with a negative growth of 26.99 percent over the same period last year. In terms of profit, the net loss was as high as 7.824 billion yuan, compared with 2.293 billion yuan in the same period last year, plunging 441.24% year on year.

Zte said the loss was due to economic sanctions imposed in the United States earlier this year.

At the same time, IT is understood that ZTE’s handset business has been struggling, so it has started to make changes to its device developers.

According to the latest research data, in the second quarter of 2018, the top five mobile phone market shares were Samsung, Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi and Oppo. Zte has been excluded from the list for a long time.

Due to the unsatisfactory mobile phone business, ZTE has made a lot of adjustments to the terminal research and development personnel. It is reported that the Nanjing Research Institute, the core of ZTE’s research and development, has begun personnel optimization, and most of zte’s mobile phone related personnel in Europe have been evacuated.

But now zte says it is readjusted and ready to get back on track.

At an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting held at ZTE’s headquarters in Guangdong province on Aug 28, CEO Xu Ziyang said zte’s current production capacity has returned to normal, and the company is focusing resources on 5G construction and reducing investment in non-waterway products.

After the US Department of Commerce lifted the ban, ZTE quickly launched 5G related key field tests. Domestic partners have come to zte’s rescue. Recently, ZTE received an order from China Telecom for the 7th phase of wireless network collection project in 2018, including wireless LTE equipment including 800M, 1.8G/ 2.1g standard station, QCell, PadRRU and CL common mode.

Zte said its research and development schedule has caught up with the target set at the beginning of the year, and 5G testing progress has fully caught up with national testing progress.