We report the results of a theoretical study of structural, electronic, and pressure-induced phase transition properties in ZnTe. Total energies of several high-pressure polymorphs are calculated using the density functional theory ~DFT! formalism under the nonlocal approximation. Thermal effects are included by means of a nonempirical Debye-like model. In agreement with optical absorption data, the lowest direct gap of the zinc blende polymorph is found to follow a nonlinear pressure dependence that turns into linear behavior when expressed in terms of the decrease in the lattice parameter. The pressure stability ranges of cubic ~zinc blende and rocksalt!, trigonal ~cinnabar!, and orthorhombic ~Cmcm! polymorphs are computed at static and room temperature conditions. Our calculations agree with the experimental and theoretical reported zinc blende !cinnabar!Cmcmpressure-induced phase sequence. Linear and bulk compressibilities are evaluated for the four polymorphs and reveal an anisotropic behavior of the cinnabar structure, which contrasts with the cubiclike compression of its shortest Zn-Te bonds. The qualitative trend shows a crystal that becomes relatively less compressible in the high-pressure phases. Due to their technical and scientific importance, the structural and electronic behavior of II-VI compounds has been extensively investigated in the past decades. See, for example, Refs. 1 and 2 and references therein. Among the most interesting phenomena, the pressure-induced polymorphism is specially relevant, and demands theoretical and experimental studies to understand the observed changes including the semiconductor-metallic transformation exhibited by many II-VI materials under hydrostatic pressure. These firstorder structural transitions increase the zero-pressure metal coordination in the lattice yielding a narrowing of the band gaps in these solids. The study of compounds belonging to the ZnX (X5O,S,Se,Te) crystal family illustrates quite well how the identification and characterization of the polymorphic sequences have been performed. Besides the common wurtzite ! rocksalt ~ZnO! and zinc blende ! rocksalt ~ZnS! phase transitions, the high-pressure structures of ZnSe and ZnTe have been a matter of debate in the last decade. 2‐7 The x-ray diffraction experiments of Pellicer-Porres et al. 3 allow us now to establish the existence of a ~meta!stable cinnabar phase between the zinc blende and rocksalt structures in ZnSe. Conclusive experimental and theoretical results in ZnTe have recently confirmed the sequence zinc blende ~ZnTe-I! ! cinnabar ~ZnTe-II! !Cmcm ~ZnTe-III!, although the presence of a rocksalt structure ~ZnTe-IV! after ZnTe-III remains unclear. 2,6,7 For ZnTe, static and room temperature phase diagrams, phase transition volumes, and structural parameters of the three phases are available. In addition, the nonlinear response under pressure of the lowest direct absorption gap of ZnTe-I ~Refs. 8 ‐10! have been also reported.