Ni Fei is to take full charge of ZTE's mobile devices business while continuing to act as president of Nubia Technology Co., Ltd.
Fei joined ZTE in 2001 and has been engaged in the firm’s terminal product operation since 2004. In 2012, he participated in the establishment of Nubia and became the GM of Nubia Smartphones; his promotion to president was confirmed in May 2019.
At Nubia, Fei took the lead to create China's first full Netcom mobile phone, the Nubia Z5, and led the design of the industry's first bezel-less smartphone the Nubia Z9, as well as the industry's first bezel-less full-screen product, Z17S.
In 2018, he headed the launch of Redmagic for the mobile gaming market.
While committing to investments in 5G, IoT, chipsets, and other related fields, ZTE said in a statement: “Moving forward, Ni Fei will lead the team to grasp the medium-term and long-term opportunities of 5G and IoT, to address the changes and challenges in global terminal markets.”
ZTE has made strides with its 5G roll outs, making a string of announcements over the last six months.
In November it joined forced with the Zhejiang Branch of China Telecom to trial 5G slicing, edge computing and smart manufacturing for a new 5G smart factory.
In January it committed to raising $1.66 billion in a private share placement in order to fund 5G research and later that month, in collaboration with MTN, ZTE launched the first 5G standalone network in East Africa.
In April, China Mobile awarded contracts valued at US$5.2 billion to ZTE, along with Huawei and Ericsson for the build out of 232,143 base stations to support the ongoing roll out of its 5G network.
