HONG KONG, June 20, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UTStarcom Holdings Corp. ("UTStarcom" or "the Company") (Nasdaq:UTSI), a global telecommunications infrastructure provider, announced today that Mr. Himanshu H. Shah has been appointed chairman of the Company's Board of Directors (the "Board"), effective June 19, 2014.

Mr. Shah will replace Mr. Xiaoping Li in this role. Mr. Xiaoping Li has been chairman of the Board since August 2012 and a member of the Board since September 2010. He will continue to serve as a director going forward.

Mr. Shah joined the Board in November 2013. He is the founder and president of Shah Capital and has more than 23 years of experience in the global capital markets, which is expected to benefit of UTStarcom, its stakeholders and its investors. Mr. Shah received his master of business administration degree from the University of Akron and his bachelor of commerce degree from Gujarat University in India.

Mr. William Wong, UTStarcom's chief executive officer, stated, "On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Xiaoping for his contribution as chairman during a time of important and positive transformation and are delighted that we will continue to benefit from his insight as a director going forward. At the same time, we welcome Himanshu as our new chairman and look forward to continuing to work together closely with him to drive our strategy and explore opportunities to enhance the value of our business."

Mr. Shah said, "It is an honor to serve UTStarcom as chairman. As both an investor and director, I have been impressed by the Company's strong balance sheet as well as its tier-one customers in Asia-Pacific through its technological leadership. I look forward to continuing to work with the management team to drive sales growth and international expansion with profitability front and center."

Going forward, the Board will continue to consist of six directors, including four independent directors. The six directors consist of three U.S. citizens, one Canadian citizen, and two Chinese citizens.

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
         
         May Shen (Beijing)
         Tel: +86-10-8591-1951
         Email: May.Shen@fticonsulting.com
         
         Daniel DelRe (Hong Kong)
         Tel: +852-3768-4547
         Email: Daniel.DelRe@fticonsulting.com