China's ZTE Corp posts third-quarter profit, expects full-year loss

By Sijia Jiang

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese telecoms equipment maker ZTE Corp posted a third-quarter net profit of 564 million yuan ($81 million) after resuming business in the wake of crippling U.S. sanctions, but said it still expects to post a loss of up to 7.2 billion yuan for the full year.

Profit in the three months to Sept. 30 was down 65 percent year on year, while revenue dropped by 14.3 percent to 19.33 billion, the company said on Thursday.

The world's fourth-largest telecommunications equipment maker by market share posted its worst half-year loss of 7.8 billion yuan in August due to U.S. sanctions over violations of export restrictions.

It was forced to stop most business operations between April and July, when it paid $1.4 billion in penalties to lift the sanctions.

In its Thursday filing ZTE said it expects to make a loss of between 6.2 billion and 7.2 billion yuan for full-year 2018, compared with a profit of 4.57 billion in 2017.

($1 = 6.9440 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Sijia Jiang; Editing by David Goodman and David Holmes)