China's telecom equipment manufacturer ZTE Corporation plans to launch six new smartphones this year and establish a world-class handset research and development centre in India.

The phones, a mix of 3G and 4G devices, will be priced at Rs 7,000-Rs 18,000 and cater to different segments of the market, a top company executive told ET.

ZTE Corp also aims to ship more than 80 million of the devices globally next year.

The company is also targeting the fat profit margins promised by sales of high-end phones in the United States even after government officials flagged security concerns about Chinese-made network equipment, which has been mostly shut out of the U.S. and other markets.

"ZTE is particularly gung-ho about the business potential of 4G LTE deployments in India and we will shortly finalise specific 4G models that will be launched," said Adam Zeng, executive VP and worldwide head of ZTE's handsets business.

Zeng was speaking to ET on the sidelines of the ZTE global analyst conference in Shanghai. The company, China's second-largest telecom gear maker, will deploy a hybrid marketing strategy involving partner operators and independent channel partners to sell its new mobile phones.

It also plans to team up with five regional distributors for its handsets business across India, besides selling its premium phones like the Nubia devices through online retailers such as Amazon, eBay and Flipkart.

The handset maker is also in talks with global chipset suppliers such as MediaTek, Marvell and Qualcomm to bring in affordable 4G phones in the country since it realises that "affordability" will drive 4G growth. It is also likely to bring to India its popular V5 budget 4G handset, which is currently selling in China for about $130 (Rs 7,700), said Zeng.

In aclear bid to boost sales of handsets across the GSM, CDMA and 4G-LTE platforms, ZTE's India unit will double its marketing and brandbuilding budgets in 2014-15, said Lv Qian Haw, head of devices strategy at ZTE Corp, who was also present at the event.

The company is also evolving a 'service at the doorstep' strategy to back its pan-India handset marketing operations, added Qian Haw. While ZTE has focused on Android devices so far, it is likely to introduce later this year phones that also run on the Firefox operating system.

(This story is based on Adam Zeng, executive VP and worldwide head of ZTE's handsets business, interview to The Economic Times, India's largest Economic daily)