A leader of Chinese telecommunication equipment provider ZTE says making smartphones more available to a wider audience has been key to his company's sharply increased sales.

He Shiyou, ZTE's executive vice president, told reporters Monday that his company had "successfully entered" the high-end market in Europe and Japan, while also making "breakthroughs" with tier-one operators in the United States.

ZTE sold 90 million devices throughout the world in 2010, a 50-percent increase over 2009, He said Monday at the ongoing Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona.

A study by International Data Corp., a market research and analysis firm specializing in information technology, He said, has ranked ZTE among the top five handset vendors in the world because of its improved sales.

Company flagship products such as the ZTE Blade and ZTE Light are available in more than 30 countries worldwide, He said.

"We believe that the key to making the mobile Internet widely available is to lower the entry threshold," He said, adding that as part of its new strategy, ZTE will "accelerate its expansion of the smart devices portfolio with its latest smartphones, tablets, and Internet box devices, in order to build a comprehensive smart information platform."

The company's new line leading phone, the ZTE Skate, available in May, is described as a "fashionably thin and lightweight" 4.3-inch touchscreen Android device, with an 800 MHz processor, HD display and 5-MP camera.

ZTE also revealed three new devices in its Light tablet range, including a new 10-inch Android 3.0 device planned for launch in the third quarter.