26 Oct 11 ZTE Wants to Take over Nokia’s Romanian Factory to Make Smart Phones

Last month, it was reported that the Nokia Company had determined to cut 3,500 jobs and shut their factory in Romanian. The reason was that Nokia considered it was more economical to build up a factory in Asian. On the basis of a report from the Romanian Publication Business Review, ZTE had interest in taking over the Nokia’s factory using to build smart phones for the Romanian market and emerging countries.  Strategy Manager of ZTE Romania – Lorian Ovidiu Vintila, made a statement:

We are not developing a production line which has a capacity of millions terminals like Nokia did. And we have many more restrictions because we are entering the area of smart phones and terminals that do not sell like 2G and 3G entry-level phones so that you can target the mass-market. We set up a goal that in 2012 we will produce in the new plant in Romania somewhere between 350,000-500,000 terminals for the Romanian market and emerging countries. The model of smart phone Skate 4.3 and Blade 2 will become our featured products.

If ZTE gains what they want ,then they will fulfill their goal of making 500,000 Android smart phones in the year of 2012. That’s 41,667 units per month or 1,370 units per day. Though it does not seem a large volume of production, but ZTE will save a lot of money by not having to ship those devices from China all the way to Eastern Europe.

Besides the mobile devices, ZTE will use this factory to build TV equipment. Whether ZTE have ever made TV equipment, we do not know. In any case, ZTE is not the only company who desire to take possession of Nokia’s factory. Also, Indian drug manufacturer Ranbaxy Labs wants the factory because it wants to establish an EU hub for their generic drugs according to The Financial Express. Ranbaxy Labs already bought a 96.7% stake in Terapia, which is Romania’s largest drug maker, back in 2006, so they also have incentive to take Nokia’s factory off their hands.