Meizu was founded in 2003 and was one of the first phone makers in China and used to ship 10 million phones every year. Performance recently dropped significantly to just 1 million handsets per year and the company was taken over by another phone company - Xingji Shidai Technology. Nothing was out of the ordinary until we realized that the company was founded by the chairman of Geely - Eric Li - who now owns more than 79% of Meizu's shares.
With the new direction, Meizu saw a rebranding and refresh of the product line. With that in mind, VP Meizu via Weibo asked his followers for their opinion on the new Meizu store design. Featured shops will be significantly larger and according to the proposed design, will have cars on display as well.
Meizu doesn't plan to launch its own vehicle, at least in the near future. It's very likely that it will feature Geely vehicles in its showrooms instead and offer full sales service. Confirmation of the plan comes from a recent job posting by Meizu - everything related to the auto industry suggests that the company wants its own car market share.
To further substantiate this, Meizu's base in Zhuhai has been dressed up with a giant poster that reads "All in Auto" - the instructions are clear. Geely's senior VP confirmed that Meizu would not actually go into manufacturing but would provide sales services to the car company.
Xingji, which now owns Meizu, was only founded in September last year with the aim of designing and producing high-end smartphones. The company had a global distribution plan and while it was developing its first product, it made sense to increase Meizu's revenue by selling Geely cars. That way, everything stays in the family, that is. Customers may end up buying a phone while looking for a car or buying a car while looking for a phone. After all, Meizu was making money.
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