Mr. Shangkong | ZTE who? China's next push is smartphone brand names in US
Promotion for the Chinese Axon phone brand during recent US state visit signals B2C push
Try and guess which company is the No4 smartphone in the US market after Apple, Samsung and LG? It's a Chinese company.
Many American smartphone users may not know ZTE, one of the two largest telecoms equipment makers in China, but ZTE is already the fourth largest smartphone vendor in the US, with a nearly 8 per cent market share, according to consultancy firm Strategy Analytics.
The bigger story behind ZTE's No4 position in the US market is about the long-term strategy that many Chinese technology firms are now going to take more seriously following President Xi Jinping's recent state visit to America.
The reason why American smartphone users never hear about Chinese brands like ZTE, or Huawei - its biggest rival on the mainland - is because many Chinese manufacturers provide their products to major mobile network operators including AT&T and Verizon without promoting their own brands.
But the situation is changing.
After years of partnerships with US mobile network operators, both ZTE and Huawei are more keen to put themselves directly in front of consumers in North American markets. In other words, their business strategy is shifting from the B2B (business to business) to a B2C (business to consumer) model.
The latest effort by ZTE to raise its brand awareness in the US was to put its latest ZTE smartphone, under a subsidiary brand called Axon, on the tables of a welcome banquet for the Chinese delegation at the Westin hotel in Seattle, with many VIPs accompanying Xi proudly showing off their Axon smartphones.
