Chinese vendor ZTE as the world’s fourth largest smartphone manufacturer, unseating HTC, is yet to astound the world with its upcoming over-the-top smartphone technology.

What is ZTE?

Whilst ZTE has created a massive market not only in China, but overseas as well. Not many people are aware of the company and has quite taken many by surprise when it took its seat as the fourth largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world in October 2012.

Headquartered in Shenzen, China, ZTE (formerly called Zhongxing Telecommunication Equipment Corporation) initially profited in domestic sales and later on expanded to other countries. The company specializes in the manufacture of telecommunications software and hardware, gears, services to telecommunication providers, mobile phones, and tablets. The company primarily sell their products under their company label, and also manufacture products labelled under other brand names.

Over the years in business, ZTE has built several subsidiaries in countries such as Australia, Deutschland, Hong Kong, and United States of America. A good percentage of ZTE’s customers are found outside the lands of China which include prominent names in the industry such as Canada’s Telus and Public Mobile, UK’s Vodafone, Spain’s Telefonica, France Telecom, and Australian Telstra. Their U.S. market comprises of clients such as At&T, Cricket, MetroPCS, Sprint (Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA), T-Mobile, Verizon, and TracFone.

Prior to unseating HTC Corporation this year, ZTE ranked as the world’s third largest GSM telecom equipment.

At par with Samsung’s technology

Reportedly, Korean mobile phone maker-Samsung has been rumored to be currently working on 8-core processors for their upcoming devices to be rolled out to the market next year.  It is believed to overturn the current amount of processors the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and S3 handsets predecessors have. The upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4 is rumored to come in with a 5-inch 1080p Full HD Super AMOLED display and a 13-megapixel camera.

Apparently, it may not just be Samsung who will be taking the attention of consumers all over world by then. ZTE’s advancement in their technology will be in no time keep abreast with Samsung’s priced treasures. With no official released just yet, it is rumored to first launch the world’s first octa-core handset next year – closely placing an end to the once impressive quad-core SmartPhones.

In the making of this handset, the company has partnered with MediaTek, a fables semi-conductor company that caters to wireless and digital communications and solutions.

Phone specs

As reported, the rumored ZTE handset code named “Apache” is tipped for release in the incoming year. It is rumored to be packed with high-end specs that would undoubtedly place the company in the spotlight as an aggressive competitor against big names in the SmartPhone industry worldwide.

ZTE has not given detailed specifications of the phone, but has given hint that the phone includes a yet unnamed ARM15 MT6599 chip from MediaTek, which was said to have outdone both NVIDIA and Qualcomm in this innovation – another rumor that needs to be confirmed (as up until the moment, MediaTek has not yet leveled up from its place in the low end of the dual core processor market). The phone’s CPU will be manufactured through a process based on TSMC’s 28nm technology. ZTE Apache presents itself with a full HD (1080p) display, mounted with a 13 megapixel camera at its rear, and backed with LTE technology making it reliable for 4G connectivity. The phone’s specifications suggest that the phone has the capability running a video on 8k at 60fps.

ZTE stepping up their game

If rumors about this phone are true, ZTE has surely paved its way through the industry world giants have made footprints on. The company has slowly risen from the domestic market supplier category in the recent years, but is clearly stepping up its game by creating an innovative offering that the whole world is yet to see.

But before the world gets too excited, the rumors are still rumors when no official statement from ZTE is released. And whether the company is making a press release or not, the upcoming CES 2013 in March will have to be the day all speculations and rumors will be concluded.