Vodafone Group has committed to purchasing 10 million ZTE mobile phones as a way to increase its cooperation with China, according to a Trading Markets report.

This agreement marks the first time the U.K. operator has purchased this many Chinese mobile phones.

With the anticipated slowdown of device sales and the global financial crisis looming, the low-cost handsets from China are expected to put pressure on Nokia and Motorola, which are bringing their own low-cost devices to market.

Yesterday, Nokia introduced seven new devices intended to meet low-cost parameters for emerging markets.