Shares of Chinese handset maker ZTE Corporation (0763.HK) rebounded a bit today after plunging Thursday on concerns about the company’s lawsuit with Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and worries about its 2011 results, which have yet to be announced. Ericsson shares were flat after it released two pieces of news: the settlement of the lawsuits with ZTE and the replacement of CTO Hakan Eriksson by Ulf Ewaldsson effective at the beginning of next month.
ZTE says it has signed royalty-bearing license agreements for certain Ericsson patents. Last year Ericsson sued ZTE in Germany, the UK and Italy for allegedly infringing on its patents related to GSM and 3G/UMTS technology. ZTE then countersued Ericsson in China. Yesterday ZTE and Ericsson said they had resolved all patent license issues and both parties would drop all lawsuits.
RCR Wireless News CEO Jeff Mucci recently interviewed the CEO of ZTE USA, Lixin Cheng at the Consumer Electronics Show. Cheng says his company is currently supplying handsets to all the top tier U.S. carriers and shipped more than 100 million handsets (16 million smart devices) last year.
