ByteDance Launches AI Voice Assistant on ZTE Nubia M153 Smartphones

Giving its latest developed AI-powered tool a trial on ZTE soon to be released NUBIA M153 phone, which is scheduled to launch, is a bold move by the company to enter the AI voice assistant market. 

The assistant can be used to do things, including searching the content and making a ticket booking, with simple speech inputs driven by ByteDance’s large-language model Doubao. 

As the Nubia M153 is now expected to pre-ordered at 3,499 yuan (US $495), the company is making an entrance into the smart-device innovation sector without actually producing smart devices.  

Good Competitive Environment and Market Share

The Doubao chatbot of ByteDance already boasts an impressive user base, generating 159 million monthly active users by October 2025, which, for comparison, is 159 times the amount of Yuanbao (73 million) and 72 times the amount of DeepSeek (72 million), based on an AI-tracking platform called Aicpb.com. 

Such a strong user interaction provides a solid base on which ByteDance can apply its AI application into voice control, which would have a direct competition to the corresponding AI-based functionalities available using Huawei and Xiaomi smart phones in China.  

ZTE Shares Surge on AI News  

ZTE stock rose by 10% in Hong Kong, its highest point in two months since 29 October, in anticipation of the Nubia M153 and recent corporate 5G deals in Vietnam. 

The costs of artificially intelligent capabilities at the ByteDance in combination with hardware capabilities at ZTE illustrate a feasible partnership that would be able to maximize the full potential of the growing AI and 5G market in China.

Future Outlook

ByteDance is not manufacturing smartphones, but is entering into agreeable deals with various phone manufacturers to launch its AI voice assistant on a whole variety of devices. 

With voice AI taking over user experience, the growth of ByteDance will potentially redefine competition relations between companies of the domestic tech sector and potentially have an impact on the global market. 

The Chinese AI-voice-assistant market has high growth potential, which is fueled by the growing use of assistants and 5G networks, which means that the strategic presence of ByteDance in this new sector.