SHENZHEN-BASED telecom equipment and smartphone maker ZTE Corp. will announce a new management team today, a spokesman said.

    ZTE’s board of directors will meet to approve the new team and changes will be made public in a stock exchange filing this afternoon or evening, ZTE spokesman David Dai said yesterday.

    Dai said ZTE reshuffles management every three years and the forthcoming changes are in line with its regular schedule.

    ZTE has found itself subject to some of the toughest-ever U.S. export restrictions for allegedly breaking U.S. sanctions against Iran in 2012. Last month, the U.S. Government said it would ease those restrictions until the end of June and could further ease them if ZTE cooperated in “resolving the matter.”

    The Wall Street Journal first reported Saturday that ZTE was lining up management changes.

    The paper said chief executive Shi Lirong and executive vice presidents Tian Wenguo and Qiu Weizhao are expected to step down, with chief technology officer Zhao Xianming to take over as CEO and chairman. The newspaper said that part of ZTE’s agreed cooperation with the U.S. Government involved replacing executives involved with the alleged Iran sanctions breach.

    Dai said he could not confirm which executives would be involved in the management changes to be announced today and could not comment on whether the upcoming changes were related to the alleged Iran sanctions breach in any way.

    “I cannot speculate on this type of discussion,” he said. “I am not in a position to comment.”

    ZTE has annual sales of more than US$15 billion and is the only Chinese smartphone maker with a meaningful presence in the U.S. market.

    The firm is the No. 4 smartphone vendor in the United States, with a 7 percent market share, behind Apple, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, according to research firm IDC. It sells handset devices to three of the four largest U.S. mobile carriers — AT&T, T-Mobile U.S. and Sprint Corp. (SD-Agencies)