ZTE Corp's mobile phone sales grew 30 percent year on year in the first quarter of the year, boosted by the CDMA business and 3G phone sales, the Shenzhen-listed firm said yesterday.

From January to March, ZTE sold a total of 10 million handset units, including 3G, or third generation, phones which can be used for high-speed Web browsing and video calls. The CDMA (code division multiple access) phones contributed 25 percent to total sales to rank as the second highest in the domestic market, ZTE said.

"We have developed our portfolio to provide phones for consumers and for each carrier," said Xiong Hui, vice general manager of ZTE's handset business division.

He added that the development of 3G will continue to boost the handset sales of ZTE as the company has provided 3G models to all three Chinese carriers - China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom.

Shares of ZTE gained 2.24 percent to close at 38.20 yuan (US$5.67) yesterday, while the Shenzhen stock market closed 3.06 percent higher.

In January, China granted 3G licenses to the three carriers and so far China Mobile and China Telecom have started trial commercial use of the technology. China Unicom is set to launch its 3G services in May.

Since April 2008, China Mobile has attracted 710,000 3G users for its TD-SCDMA (time division-synchronous code division multiple access) network.

In 2009, global handset sales are likely to drop 10 percent due to the worldwide financial crisis while domestic handset sales are seen to be unchanged, said Gartner Inc, a United States-based IT consulting firm.

(Shanghai Daily April 30, 2009)