ZTE Corp, the No 2 telecoms equipment maker in China, saw its unaudited overseas turnover more than double in the first half of this year.

ZTE's dazzling growth of overseas sales has largely offset a sharp drop of revenues at home due to a slowing domestic market.

The Shenzhen-based firm said its international turnover jumped 130.88 per cent year-on-year in the first half of this year.

During the period, its overseas turnover accounted for 30.5 per cent of its total revenues of 10.303 billion yuan (US$1.27 billion).

Company Chairman Hou Weigui said he expected ZTE's overseas sales to maintain a high growth rate in the second half of this year due to its substantial investment and efforts.

ZTE, which is listed in both Shanghai and Hong Kong, said its first-half net profits rose 34 per cent to 688 million yuan (US$84.9 million), according to accounting standards in the Chinese mainland.

In terms of accounting standards in Hong Kong, ZTE's profits dropped by 8.8 per cent to 660 million yuan.

ZTE and its bigger domestic rival Huawei Technologies have been coping with a slowdown of the domestic market due to a spending cutback by domestic telecoms operators.

Statistics by the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) show that the fixed-asset investment in China's telecoms industry in the first half of this year stood at 77.81 billion yuan (US$9.61 billion), down 12.2 per cent year-on-year.

ZTE expects the picture of a looming reshuffle of the domestic operators and the licensing of the 3G mobile services to be clearer in the second half of this year, which could boost ZTE's sales.

(China Daily August 25, 2005)