ZTE Corporation has signed an agreement with the European distribution business of Brightpoint to provide own-branded smartphones and tablet devices to the UK.

The Chinese telecoms company - best-known in the UK for providing 'white label' devices - has previously said it expects to ship more than 80 million handsets this year, up from 60 million units in 2010.

China's ZTE Corporation says it expects to ship more than 80 million handsets this year, up from 60 million units in 2010.

In addition it says it's sold more than two million ZTE Blade handsets, a phone that’s also known as the Orange San Francisco in the UK and the Softbank Venus in Japan.

Microsoft has officially previewed the next major release of the Windows Phone 7 platform. It's code-named 'Mango' and will include more than 500 new features.

This update will be available free to existing Windows Phone 7 customers and is expected to be included on new phones from the autumn. Those new phones will be produced by Microsoft's existing partners - including Nokia - and by new manufacturers including Acer, Fujitsu and ZTE.

Qualcomm has announced that its Snapdragon MSM7x30 chipset can now support the Russian GLONASS satellite system and the US GPS location service simultaneously. The first phone with GLONASS and GPS support will be the MTS 945 from ZTE.

Working with both satellite networks offers more accurate location information and also has a potential commercial benefit.

The International Data Corporation has reported that the worldwide mobile phone market grew 19.8% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2011, with smartphones gaining in popularity. A total of 371.8 million mobile devices were shipped in Q1 of 2011, compared with 310.5 million units in the first quarter of 2010.

In terms of overall market share, Nokia remained in the lead with 29.2%, followed by Samsung, LG, Apple and ZTE.