The optical and electrical properties of vapour phase grown crystals of diluted magnetic semiconductor Zn1-xCrxTe were investigated for 0 <= x <= 0.005. The diffuse reflectance spectra exhibited an increase in the fundamental absorption edge (E-0) with composition x and were also dominated by a broad absorption band around 5200 cm(-1) arising from T-5(2)-> E-5 transition. The T-5(2) and E-5 levels originate from the crystal field splitting of the D-5 free ion in the ground state. The electrical resistivity measurements revealed semiconducting behaviour of the samples with p-type conductivity in the temperature range of 200-450 K. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.