ZTE has stepped up its efforts to internally develop smartphone chipset solutions, aiming to re-capture the title as one of the top-three smartphone vendors in China, according to a China Business News (CBN) report.

The China-based vendor has rolled out more than 80 communication chips such as wireless baseband chips, RF chips, router chips and STB chips, so it would not be difficult for ZTE to develop chipset solutions for smartphones, said company vice president Yu Yi-fang as quoted by the paper.

ZTE's first model of in-house developed application processor for smartphones and related OS have been approved for registration online by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), Yu revealed.

Sales of ZTE's smartphones have been gaining momentum recently and shipments in the fourth quarter of 2015 are likely to equal to the combined amount shipped in the previous two quarters, Yu said.