China's ZTE unveils new 5-inch smartphone

IDG News Service - Chinese handset maker ZTE showed off a new high-end phone on Wednesday. The Z5 has a 5-inch screen, a 13-megapixel camera and a quad-core processor.

The Z5 is part ZTE's new line of Nubia devices, according to the company's official account on Chinese social networking site Sina Weibo.

The phone will go on sale in mainland China in December, and later in other markets, a ZTE representative said, while declining to provide further technical details of the device.

There's a growing number of 5-inch smartphones on the market, with Samsung selling its 5.55 inch Galaxy Note 2, and HTC slated to launch a 5-inch smartphone called the HTC Butterfly J in Japan this December.

ZTE is currently the world's fourth-largest smartphone vendor, and saw 82.9 percent year-over-year growth in its smartphone shipments this past third quarter, according to research firm IDC.

The company has had much of its success selling smartphones in China and other emerging markets, by pricing its phones at the lower end of the market. But ZTE also wants to focus on markets including the U.S. and Japan, where smartphones are priced higher and can bring more profit to the company.