ZTE has made another step towards becoming one of the most competitive mobile manufacturers by announcing a new program that allows consumers to lease their devices for a period of six to 24 months. This option allows you to pay off your lease without any penalty and also give you the option to upgrade, so long as your payments are current. This program is set to cover both carrier locked or unlocked devices.

While an argument can be made that there isn't a whole lot of ZTE devices to choose from at the moment, it's still an excellent way to allow potential customers from trying out your products and eventually solidify its presence alongside other brands. The program aims to target individuals with low credit ratings that hinder them from acquiring gadgets from carriers on any type of payment plans. Lixin Cheng, CEO of ZTE USA, believes that advanced mobile technology should be available to everyone and he wants the process of owning a ZTE device easy for any consumer.

The program will be available through SmartPay, where customers can get approval to lease a ZTE device. There are no details yet, however, on when the program will actually start. It would be a wonderful coincidence (or not), if this new program becomes available at the same time as the rumored ZTE Axon Max. The company has also recently released the Axon Mini last October 12, details of the device can be found here.

The Axon Max is rumored to have the same aluminum-titanium alloy used by aircraft along with security scanners similar to the Axon Mini. Reports from Yesky also suggest that it will support a 6-inch display with a 2560 x 1440 QHD resolution. The device will be powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor with Adreno 430 GPU along with 4 GB or RAM.