Chinese handset maker ZTE and Intel on Thursday jointly announced that ZTE smartphone Geek, powered by a 2Ghz Intel Atom Z2580 Clover Trail+ processor, is landing on the market, c114.net reported.

The minimum selling price of Geek is 1,888 yuan, and can go up to 2,288 yuan. Consumers can buy the smartphone from e-commerce suppliers such as jd.com.

He Shiyou, executive vice president of ZTE, said he hopes ZTE's cooperation with Intel can make a difference and provide consumers with more powerful smartphones.

President of Intel China Yang Xu said that Intel thinks highly of the strategic cooperation with ZTE, which could help Intel improve its market position in the mobile communication area.

According to insiders, both ZTE and Intel are at a crucial stage in their development. The most important work at the moment is to improve their brand values. While ZTE needs to shift its strategic focus to mid- and high-end products to win both market share and profits, Intel has to enhance its market position in the mobile area.

It is not the first time that the two companies cooperated on a smartphone. In August 2012, ZTE launched Grand X IN, the company's first Intel-powered device.

Grand X IN was sold in Europe. Its overall sales volume is 200,000. He Shiyou said that he expects sales of the Geek in the domestic market to reach 400,000.

Two years ago, ZTE announced that it would undergo a strategic transition in intelligent terminals, with its focus shifting to mid- and high-end devices. Grand S and Grand Memo were launched after the transition. On its 15th anniversary earlier this year, ZTE reaffirmed its strategy.

He said the transition strategy is steadfast for the company, although it might encounter obstacles.

Research data shows that ZTE's global mobile market share is 4 percent. According to He, it is difficult to raise the market share by a large margin, so ZTE is adjusting its product structure while maintaining its market share proportion. The adjustment is mainly to reduce the low-end products’ portion and increase that of the mid- and high-end products.

"Even Apple and Samsung are adjusting their production layout. For ZTE, it is inevitable to develop in the same direction," He said.

"The next three years is very important. Since the top brands are encountering bottlenecks, ZTE and other domestic handset makers may have more opportunities."

"However, the transition is doomed to be long and painful, so we have to prepare for a marathon. Now we are making adjustments in all aspects. We've already divided mobile phone sales and device sales to achieve better performance in each field," He said.

For Intel, it is also a marathon. So far, it has cooperated with Lenovo, ZTE and Motorola, but it has yet to gain more market share, because its Atom products entered the market later than their competitors and their power dissipation has been mistakenly considered high by the industry, although they are more competitive in processing.

Yang Xu said that smartphones powered by Intel chips are still at the starting phase. He stressed that as the company finds more partners, consumers will be able to have different experiences brought by Intel.