ZTE (basically) confirms it’s launching a Firefox OS phone at MWC

ZTE, China’s second largest telecoms manufacturer, seems to have all but confirmed that it will push forward with plans to launch a Firefox OS-powered smartphone by the end of 2013, following on the announcement it made last year.

According to Engadget, ZTE sent out an invite mentioning a new mobile launch and the hashtag “ZTEMozilla”, which suggests the phone will be announced at Mobile World Congress next month.

Least year the smartphone maker revealed that it was teaming up with Mozilla to produce smartphones running on the open source Firefox system. About 90% of ZTE’s smartphones currently run on Android, but has revealed it does not want to concentrate on just one OS for its products. Cheng Lixin, ZTE’s US CEO, told Bloomberg previously that the company is working with a European carrier “closely monitor the ecosystem and how it evolves. If that is ready and if consumer studies support that data, then we may launch one in U.S. also this year.”

There are now a multitude of OSes coming out for mobile devices. Ubuntu showed its muscle at CES 2013 already and have had rave reviews so far.