Tuesday 16 October 2012

A week after the U.S. Congress slapped ZTE with a 'do not trust' allegation , the Chinese company gets another bitter dose of bad news. It's about to report a net loss of between 1.65 billion and 1.75 billion yuan (US $263 million to$279 million) for the first nine months of 2012, which pales in comparisonto the 1 billion yuan profitit reported during the same period in 2011. This has resulted in a sharp 15.8 percent drop in ZTE'sshare price on the Hong Kong stock exchange, where it now sits at HK$10.56. The financial hitcame exclusively in the third quarter (that's July through September), where revenues are reported to be 13 percent lower than the same period in 2011 -- 18.23 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) versus 20.95 billion yuan ($3.34 billion). The equipment vendor blamesglobal trends, low-margincontracts, project delays and procurement changesfor the downward turn, and hopes to implement some cost-cutting measures to ensure better margins. However, it says it won't stop its current deals in North America and Europe, and will continue to invest in China's LTE market. In an analyst call, executives said they hope to break even this year, and that it has