USA: ZTE to launch Android tablet, smartphone with carriers this year.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Chinese vendor aims to become one of the top five Android smartphone makers in 2011.

Chinese telecommunications equipment and mobile phone maker ZTE Corp. will launch a tablet device and a smartphone with U.S. network operators this year, both using Google Inc.'s Android operating system, ZTE executive Vice President He Shiyou said Tuesday.

He declined to say which U.S. operators will offer the devices. When asked whether one of the four major U.S. operators will offer ZTE's tablet, He said:"I don't think it'll be just one, there may be other operators as well." He declined to elaborate, citing protection of clients' information.

ZTE will launch the smartphone in the second or third quarter and the tablet before Christmas, He told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.

The four big U.S. network operators are Verizon Wireless, Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA, Sprint Nextel Corp., and AT&T Inc., but the competitive landscape there may change soon as AT&T last month said it plans to acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 billion in cash and stock.

In a statement earlier on Tuesday, ZTE said it aims this year to become one of the top five makers of smartphones using Adroid globally, and one of the top three makers of tablet computers.

"Those are very ambitious targets," said Melissa Chau, an analyst at market research firm IDC."They would have to rely on partnerships with carriers to do it."

ZTE mainly sells smartphones through operators as "second-tier" offerings that are cheaper than the main name-brand smartphones, Chau said. Even in their home market in Asia, however, they rank only seventh in terms of Android-powered phones, according to IDC data.

IDC doesn't have data on ZTE's share of the tablet market, but the share is unlikely to be significant since the company only started selling tablets in the fourth quarter of last year.

Overall, ZTE aims to ship 3 million tablets this year, He said in the interview. In the fourth quarter, it sold around 300,000 units.