ZTE said it intends to tackle the high-end smartphone market in the U.S. with new, flagship phones as soon as next year. “By 2015, we expect the U.S. to be the largest market for handsets for ZTE,” said Lixin Cheng, president of the Chinese company’s North American operations, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “Next year, we’re going to launch LTE and high-tier phones in the U.S. With a similar feature set [as the iPhone], ZTE can offer an alternative” to handsets from other smartphone makers, said Cheng. ZTE has made a number of entry-level devices for U.S. network operators, as well as a few Android-based smartphones. ZTE believes it can provide smartphones as good as the competitions’ at a lower price. ZTE didn’t elaborate on specifics about new handsets, nor did it specify which LTE network (AT&T or Verizon) it will support.