ZTE Telecom, the telecommunications equipment and network solutions provider, is gearing up to corner a substantial slice of the new $4bn telecom vendor market, which is expected to witness a boom with the advent of latest communication services including 3G and WiMax in India.

D K Ghosh, chairman and MD of ZTE India said that his company is eyeing a 10-15% share of the new market. “We have some major plans for India and plan to grow by around 30 per cent every year and looking ahead for business from the 3G and WiMax sector,” he said.

During financial year 2009-10, ZTE Telecom realized a turnover of $8.8bn with its Indian operations contributing 10%.

3G auction turned controversial with the disqualification of some participants including ZTE. The tender floated by the state-owned BSNL for 93mn GSM connections was scraped after government referred the matter to a panel led by Sam Pitroda. ZTE is eagerly awaiting the re-tender process. “We are eagerly awaiting the tender to get cleared and we are hopeful that we won’t be disqualified this time,” Mr. Ghosh said.

ZTE is planning to launch branded handsets in the coming months. The company is setting a target of 2mn handsets to begin with. Mr. Ghosh said, “There will be 10-12 types of handsets for both GSM and CDMA variety.”

Last month, the government had announced that foreign telecommunication operators in India can employ only Indians. Taking cue, ZTE India is planning to send its 250 Chinese employees back and hire 1000 more locally in the current financial year. However, Mr. Ghosh clarified, “It is part of our localization policy and has nothing to do with the department of telecom directive.”

The 3G auction is already underway in India and would be followed by that for WiMax services.

The boom of Indian IT services is back again. Recovering from the layovers and the sit offs, the Indian IT sector is now looking to hire again.

The Indian IT sector is a $60 billion industry and as the demand for outsourcing increases with the cash crunch in the west, outsourcing firms are scampering to improve the quality of their services to get more and more business.

When you contrast this with what had been happening just a few months earlier, the difference are stark. Salaries and promotions were frozen and even big companies like Tata Consultancy Services had frozen hiring and sent back fresh recruits, only to call them back a year later. This had happened as most outsourcing firms began to see red in their first quarter reports.

This was a major setback to India’s growth story since the IT services sector is today one of the biggest job creators in India, lapping up fresh graduates every quarter. With the confidence back now, bigger things may be expected from the industry.