Chinese firm gets $400-mn contract from Aircel

New Delhi: Chinese telecom gear manufacturer ZTE Corporation has bagged a $400-million contract from Maxis-controlled Aircel to expand GSM coverage in the country. This is one of the biggest contracts the Chinese company has bagged for a private telecom project in India.

Aircel, which is 74 per cent owned by Malaysia-based Maxis, currently has more than 11 million mobile users and is expanding its network. ZTE had earlier said that India was its most important market outside China.

ZTE is also targeting 20 per cent of its global handset sales from India and will enter the retail market with its own brand by this year-end. Till the current quarter of this fiscal year, ZTE India sold 3.5 million handsets.

In 2007, ZTE sold eight million handsets in India. It had a revenue of $700 million from India, including both handset and network equipment sales compared with global revenue of $7 billion.