Chinese smartphone maker ZTE Corp aims to ship more than 60 million smartphones globally this year, as it tries to grab more share of a highly competitive market dominated by Samsung Electronics and Apple.

The Shenzhen-listed company shipped around 40 million smartphones last year, Senior Vice President Zhang Renjun told reporters at a company event on Thursday, Jan 16, according to Reuters.

ZTE, which competes with cross-town rival Huawei Technologies Co Ltd in the telecom equipment and mobile device businesses, fell out of the top five global smartphone vendors list last year, according to third-quarter data from researchers IDC and Gartner.

At home in China, the world's largest mobile phone market with more than one billion subscribers, ZTE competes with both Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc, as well as domestic makers Lenovo Group Ltd, Huawei and privately held Xiaomi.