ZTE and Firefox: Another Shot at the Apple-Google Stranglehold in Mobile

Consumer Electronics

Published: August 13, 2013 8:00 am

Last Updated: April 28, 2020 10:54 am

Chinese mobile device maker ZTE Corp. is about to launch its ZTE One smartphone in the United States and the United Kingdom. The device will sell for $80 in the U.S. and will only be available for sale on eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) in an unlocked version with no contract that uses the Firefox operating system from Mozilla, the nonprofit organization responsible for the popular Firefox web browser.

ZTE, while not a household word in the United States, is one of the largest mobile device makers in the world and sold 11.5 million units in the second quarter of 2013, according to Strategy Analytics. That is well behind both Samsung Electronics (76 million units) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) (31.2 million units), but within range to overtake LG Electronics (12.5 million units) for third place.

ZTE’s primary market is China, but it also has set its sights on India, where it is targeting 20% to 25% of the high-end smartphone market with smartphones priced from around $80 to $250.

Emerging economies like India’s and China’s are where the growth is in the smartphone market. In order to attract attention from hundreds of millions of potential smartphone users in just these two countries, the devices must be cheap and, in China, use the Android operating system from Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). Android is the word that sells in China.

It remains to be seen whether ZTE can sell the ZTE One in developed countries. But the price point is certainly right, even if the device offers only 3G connectivity and cannot use apps from either the iOS or Android ecosystems.

The Firefox OS is built on HTML 5 and, because that is an open standard, any device that supports HTML 5 should theoretically be able to run an app built to that standard. Mozilla also supports an app store where a variety of common apps are available.

Will the ZTE-Mozilla combination work in the United States? Probably not, but the price point is very attractive in developing markets, and that is where the growth in smartphone shipments is going to be. Samsung and Apple cannot ignore this threat, which is likely just the first of many to the duopoly’s hegemony in global smartphone sales.

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