China's ZTE presents its Axon 10 Pro 5G cellphone at Mobile World Congress (MWC 2019) in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 26, 2019. (Photo: Xinhua)

China's 5G giants ZTE and Huawei are marching overseas steadily with assurable production ability and diminishing marginal effects of the US' crackdown, experts said Sunday after media reported that ZTE has landed a 5G contract with French operator Orange's Spanish subsidiary.

The overseas development of Chinese 5G technology companies, especially in Europe, has turned out to be much brighter than people thought last year, which clearly shows that the marginal effect of US government threats has been diminishing, Ma Jihua, a senior telecom industry expert, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the rapid development of the novel coronavirus outbreak overseas will bring adjustments to the political framework, including the relationship between European countries and China, which has accelerated bilateral dependence in trade and other sectors, Ma said, adding that China would offer help in materials and expertise to other countries to fight the disease.

There are hundreds of telecom operators in the world, with only a couple of mature equipment makers. It is reasonable for the telecom carriers to adopt a globalized strategy covering suppliers to include both Chinese and European vendors in their projects to guarantee more balanced and stable operations in the long term, Ma said. 

Orange, a French multinational telecom operator, is also using Ericsson and Huawei as network partners, according to a report from industry news site Light Reading.

While speaking of the production ability of ZTE and Huawei amid the virus epidemic, Ma said that these companies have developed an advanced management system with a high level of manufacturing plants, which could allow them to quickly recover from the suspension of production in the wake of the epidemic, Ma said.

He pointed out that with the gradual resumption of production in China and an initial phase of European countries starting to set up 5G networks, the overall supply ability of the Chinese companies would be sufficient.

ZTE has obtained 46 commercial 5G contracts in major markets, such as Europe, the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The company "has declared 2,561 families of 5G Standard-Essential Patents to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, thereby being included the global top 3," said a statement of the company on Saturday.