ZTE published its 2025 annual report on March 6, posting revenue of ¥133.9 billion, up 10.4% year‑on‑year, and a net profit attributable to shareholders of ¥5.62 billion. The company declared a cash dividend equal to 35% of attributable net profit, and highlighted 2025 as a watershed year in which it shifted the company’s centre of gravity from traditional carrier equipment toward an AI‑driven “connection + compute” strategy.
Across 2025 ZTE reported an explosive expansion in its compute business: AI‑related revenue grew by roughly 150% and now accounts for 24.6% of group sales. Server and storage sales surged more than 200% year‑on‑year, while data‑centre products rose about 50%, reflecting strong demand from cloud and telecom customers for large‑scale AI infrastructure.
ZTE credits that growth to an early, full‑stack push into AI infrastructure. It has bundled chip development, algorithms, architecture design, delivery capabilities and standards work to offer end‑to‑end systems that it pitches on total cost of ownership (TCO). Products such as high‑efficiency nodes, AiCube integrated systems and Co‑Sight smart factories have been deployed across more than 500 green data centres globally and into core scenarios at leading domestic internet, telecom, finance and power companies.
The compute push has been coordinated with ZTE’s decades of telecom experience. The company argues that modern communications networks act as the nervous system for AI — improving utilisation of distributed compute and reducing system TCO — and has therefore emphasised “connection + compute” as complementary rather than competing businesses.
Those gains were offset by a squeeze on gross margins. Global shortages and sharp price rises for DRAM and NAND Flash in 2025 lifted system costs, while large downstream customers exerted strong pricing pressure, contributing to a 33.3% fall in attributable net profit year‑on‑year. ZTE is not alone: the report cites similarly tepid growth at Huawei and wider stresses across the ICT equipment sector.
To shore up margins and long‑term resilience ZTE is increasing technology self‑reliance. R&D spending reached ¥22.76 billion (about 17.0% of revenue) in 2025, with the company prioritising chip and system integration, scaling compute product volumes to capture procurement economies and shifting from hardware sales toward solutions and services to lift future profitability.
On consumer terminals ZTE is positioning AI phones as the company’s next frontier. Consumer revenue came in at ¥33.82 billion (+4.4%); ZTE says personal device sales achieved double‑digit growth while overseas smartphone shipments and 5G fixed wireless access (FWA/MBB) share held leading positions. ZTE’s Nubia brand, in partnership with ByteDance’s “Doubao” phone assistant, previewed the Nubia M153 with an embedded AI assistant — a proof‑point for the company’s stated ambition to field system‑level “agent” phones in 2026.
Beyond flagship devices, ZTE bills a wide terminal matrix spanning affordable AI phones, foldables, gaming devices under the RedMagic and Nubia Neo lines, and a range of home‑centric smart terminals. The company reports more than 100 million household terminal shipments in 2025, 30 million FTTR sets, global leadership in PON CPE shipments, strong Wi‑Fi 7 positioning and over two million cloud‑PC terminals shipped.
The strategic picture is clear: ZTE is evolving from a traditional telecom‑equipment vendor into an AI full‑stack provider, integrating network connectivity, edge and data‑centre compute, and AI‑enabled end points. The opportunity is large — industry forecasts put 2026 global AI spending in the trillions of dollars with infrastructure consuming over half — but execution hinges on sustaining supply‑chain stability, improving margins and commercialising system‑level AI terminals at scale.
For international observers the report is a test case in how Chinese ICT players are reorienting toward AI across hardware and software, and how incumbents with network assets seek to monetise the transition. ZTE’s results show traction but also the industry‑wide reality that rapid top‑line AI growth can coexist with near‑term profit pressure as component markets tighten and pricing competition intensifies.