Investor Relations

-  Robert Pu will Remain with the Company in the Near-Term as a Strategic Consultant to Help Ensure a Smooth Transition  -

HONG KONG, Aug. 12, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UTStarcom (Nasdaq:UTSI), a global telecommunications infrastructure provider, today announced the appointment of Mr. Min Xu as Chief Financial Officer of the Company, effective August 21, 2014. Mr. Xu will replace Mr. Robert Pu who has resigned for personal reasons but will remain with the Company for six months as a consultant to help ensure a smooth transition.

Mr. Xu has fifteen years of professional experience, with a focus on finance, equity research, marketing, and engineering. He will bring to UTStarcom a unique and relevant blend of financial and capital markets experience gained during his time as a senior sell-side analyst covering a wide variety of companies listed in the U.S., deep industrial expertise in areas such as technology and telecommunications, and strong hands-on technical engineering experience from his initial career as a software engineer.

Mr. Xu was most recently a senior equity research analyst at Roth Capital. Prior to that, he was an equity research analyst with various firms, including Wedbush Securities, Jefferies & Co., Piper Jaffray & Co., and Stanford Group Company. In these positions, Mr. Xu covered a variety of companies listed in the U.S., including many growth stocks in the technology, energy and solar spaces. Earlier in his career, Mr. Xu worked for seven years as a technical marketing engineer as well as a senior software engineer with Cisco Systems, Inc. in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.In this role Mr. Xu had operational responsibilities, including conducting competitive analysis and forecasting as well as collaborating with cross-functional teams on a variety of critical projects.

Mr. Xu received an MBA from The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in 2005, a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1999, a Master of Science degree in physics from Colorado State University in 1998, and a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Peking University in 1996.

The Company also announced an additional important promotion within the finance team. Mr. Bill Lou, who joined the Company in April 2002 and presently serves as financial controller of the company, has been promoted to Vice President of Finance. Given his 12 year tenure with the Company's finance team, Mr. Lou, has in-depth experience in the financial management and internal controls of UTStarcom. He will fill a key senior management role on the finance team and will work very closely with Mr. Xu to help propel this important business function forward to new levels of sophistication.

Mr. William Wong, UTStarcom's Chief Executive Officer, stated, "Today's announcement underscores our commitment to continuing to work aggressively to transform UTStarcom and create the strongest possible teams to support the significant global growth that is planned. We are delighted to welcome Min to UTStarcom and are confident that he will have a positive impact on our finance function and will be a great addition to our senior management team. In addition to his deep and relevant financial and technical expertise, we believe his long career in equity research will benefit our efforts to drive greater and better interaction with our investors and prospective shareholders. I am excited to work closely with Min and Bill on many important initiatives that will drive our transformation forward."

Mr. Wong concluded, "We are very pleased that Robert will continue to be actively involved in the business as a consultant in the near-term, helping ensure a smooth transition and assisting with a variety of strategic initiatives that are underway. In his nearly two years as Chief Financial Officer and approximately three years as a Board member of UTStarcom, Robert did a tremendous job helping shepherd the Company through a major transformation. On behalf of all of us at the Company, I thank him very much for his many years of service and his numerous contributions during an important period in the Company's history."

About UTStarcom Holdings Corp.

UTStarcom (Nasdaq:UTSI) is a global telecom infrastructure provider dedicated to developing technology that will serve the rapidly growing demand for bandwidth from cloud-based services, mobile, streaming and other applications. We work with carriers globally, from Asia to the Americas, to meet this demand through a range of innovative broadband packet optical transport and wireless/fixed-line access products and solutions. The Company's end-to-end broadband product portfolio, enhanced through in-house Software Defined Networking (SDN)-based orchestration, enables mobile and fixed-line network operators and enterprises worldwide to build highly efficient and resilient future-proof networks for a range of applications, including mobile backhaul, metro aggregation, broadband access and Wi-Fi data offload. Our strategic investments in media operational support service providers expand UTStarcom's capabilities in the field of next generation video platforms. UTStarcom was founded in 1991, started trading on NASDAQ in 2000, and has operating entities in Tokyo, Japan; San Jose, USA; Delhi and Bangalore, India; Hangzhou, China. For more information about UTStarcom, please visit http://www.utstar.com.

CONTACT: For investor and media inquiries, please contact:
         
         Jane Zuo
         UTStarcom Holdings Corp.
         Tel: +852-3750-7632
         Email: jane.zuo@utstar.com
         
         Daniel DelRe (Hong Kong)
         Tel: +852-3768-4547
         Email: Daniel.DelRe@fticonsulting.com
         
         Simona Kormanikova (New York)
         Tel: +1-212-850-5685
         Email: Simona.Kormanikova@fticonsulting.com
         
         May Shen (Beijing)
         Tel: +86-10-8591-1951
         Email: May.Shen@fticonsulting.com