【Mobile China】Will Geely and Meizu intersect? A few years ago, the answer might have been "no," but in 2022, these two parallel lines seem to be about to embark on a wonderful journey of encounters.
On January 21, 36Kr suddenly announced that Geely Group's mobile phone company was in contact with mobile phone manufacturer Meizu to negotiate an acquisition. A number of people close to the deal said: "The transaction is still in progress and due diligence is being done". For a time, a stone stirred up thousands of waves, which caused a heated discussion among the majority of netizens. After that, Geely Holdings officially responded, "No comment on market rumors, the current high-end mobile phone research and development business in the interstellar era is progressing in an orderly manner, hoping to create an open and integrated ecological partnership." "No comment" neither acknowledges nor denies, according to the iron law of Internet response, in fact, it is basically the truth, and everyone only needs to wait for the follow-up official announcement.
Since the introduction of "Geely intends to acquire Meizu" has been thrown out now, we may as well follow this introduction to follow the vine to explore the melon, to repeatedly Meizu's past, and after 2022, what kind of pattern will be formed in China's smartphone market. In fact, in terms of this acquisition, it is still quite interesting, some netizens summed it up as "to build a car to do a mobile phone, to make a mobile phone to build a car", after which Meizu will go?
From The China Cool Link to the Huami OV, the era of the Huami Charm God is separated
In high school, when it comes to the smartphone market, China Cool Union is a resounding existence, of which "Zhong" represents ZTE, "Hua" represents Huawei, "Cool" represents Coolpad, and "Lian" represents Lenovo. In the Chinese smartphone market at that time, the shipments of these four families occupied half of the country, consumers will also pick from these four products when purchasing, but in the continuous development after that, Xiaomi suddenly emerged, Meizu also caught up, in 2015, when The double eleven Ali announced the mobile phone sales ranking, Xiaomi jumped to the first place with single-day sales of 1.56 billion, Huawei followed with 1.06 billion, ZTE, Coolpad, Lenovo has long been left behind. At this point, the era of China Cool Union is basically over, and a new era of Huami Charm God (Big God) is coming.
Meizu, founded in 2003, initially did the MP3 market, directly made the first brand of MP3 in China, with annual sales of more than 1 billion yuan, when there was no Meizu MP3 in the bag, and really did not dare to chat with classmates about music. In 2006, Meizu at that time had emerged in the FIELD of MP3 in the international market, and its products were exported to dozens of countries such as Europe, america, Japan and South Korea. It was also at this time that Huang Zhang saw the decline of the global MP3 player industry and began to turn to the research and development of Internet smartphones.
Since 2008, Meizu began to devote all its energy to the research and development of smart phones, and on January 15, 2009, Meizu obtained a mobile phone access license from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which also became a milestone event for Meizu to enter the mobile phone market. In February 2009, Meizu M8 was officially listed, becoming the first large-screen full-touch smart phone in China, which was sought after by countless users. In 2012, Meizu's output value in the first half of the year exceeded billions of yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of 128.8%, while the entire electronic information industry in Zhuhai was only 2.48 billion at that time, and Meizu became the number one upstart in the electronic information industry in Zhuhai High-tech Zone.
After that, Meizu was running wild in the Chinese smartphone market, and in 2014, Meizu released a new sub-brand Of Blue, establishing two major product lines of Meizu MX series and Charm Blue Note. After that, Meizu mobile phones have also become the memories of many post-80s and post-90s. After the prosperity fades, Meizu will tell you that only by aiming for the ultimate perfection and persistently chasing dreams can we truly gain the respect and love of users.
In mid-2017, Meizu's various series only unveiled three new models, including the Charm Blue 5s, The Charm Blue E2, and a Charm Blue A5 that is not too innovative in the strict sense. All three phones are concentrated in the Charm Blue brand, and the other brands and series have not been updated. In May of the same year, Meizu announced a new organizational structure internally, establishing three major business units of Meizu, Meilan and Flyme, Huang Zhang as the chairman and CEO of Meizu directly participated in the company's operations, Bai Yongxiang as the president of Meizu accepted the report of each functional center, and managed the newly established three major business units with Huang Zhang. Subsequently, there were rumors of serious infighting within Meizu, and the brand value went all the way down. Up to now, Meizu has almost faded out of people's sight, and the Meizu 18 series, which was originally pinned high hopes, has not achieved the established effect, coupled with the current overall market environment is grim, and the road taken by Meizu is becoming more and more difficult.
Geely entered the game, and the future market was confused
In September last year, under the witness of Li Shufu, Hubei Xingji Times Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xingji Times"), which he founded, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, announcing that it would build high-end mobile phones and serve the global market, there was not much news about the Xingji era, many people may have forgotten that Geely wanted to build mobile phones, and throwing such a message in early 2022 did play a thunderous effect.
According to the current trend, if Meizu itself turns over in a red sea, it is quite difficult, and Meizu is not facing the problem of "life", but the problem of "life and life". If Geely acquires Meizu, it can also be regarded as Meizu has a good home, and from a marketing point of view, Geely is likely to follow the name of Meizu brand, which not only ensures the inheritance of the brand but also allows consumers to have a better understanding of the brand. Just like the acquisition of Glory's Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co., Ltd., he did not change the name of the Glory brand, but carried it out, and then Geely's Xingji era could not rule out this possibility.
In addition, as far as the current overall market is concerned, Huawei's market position is being diluted due to various factors, and now Huawei is not going to have as many shipments as possible, but to work research and development, to break the sky upwards, to use one or two products to continue the mobile phone brand to survive, waiting for Kirin Nirvana, but also waiting for the domestic supply chain technology to follow up. For OPPO, vivo, millet, it is to do a good job in the main brand mobile phone products to the high-end impact at the same time, to the IoT field expansion, while allowing sub-brands to try to seize the market, in recent years, a plus, realme, iQOO, Redmi performance is quite eye-catching. How will Star Era go after acquiring Meizu? Let's talk about your opinion.
The interesting phenomenon mentioned above, "mobile phone manufacturers make cars, car manufacturers make mobile phones", in fact, may be more obvious in the next few years. Take Huawei, although it says that it does not build cars, it has become a smart car supplier, including smart cockpits, three-electric systems, etc. Are doing, and the Q&A M5 released some time ago is a good example. Xiaomi also announced its entry into the smart car market last year, and the market rumors will cooperate with BYD and is expected to be mass-produced in 2024, which can be described as pulling the expectation value of rice noodles to full. In addition, does Apple build a car? Although there is no clear answer at present, from the upstream supply chain, Apple is preparing for this, and even doing it, but it has not yet been announced. Of course, there have been rumors that Tesla wants to build mobile phones, and it is not difficult to see that the two markets of smart cars and smart phones are intertwined and lively.
So is it really necessary for the car factory to make mobile phones, and the mobile phone manufacturers to build cars? In fact, there are, at least from the current actions of each family. Although there will be a lot of capital investment, but as long as the product and experience is excellent, you can achieve profitability, some time ago Huawei Yu Chengdong also put forward a small goal of selling 300,000 cars in 2022, is not it the confidence in its own products and sales system? Take the experience, experience circulation is a major feature, at present, each family is doing smart phones and tablets and notebooks of collaboration, circulation, so can this circulation be moved to mobile phones and cars? In this regard, Huawei's Hongmeng smart cockpit is a good sample, including maps, music, communications, switch locks, etc. have made the car and mobile phone have a stronger linkage, and the experience is naturally better. If you want to do this kind of linkage across brands, the difficulty is self-evident, not only will there be more than enough and insufficient strength, but mutual blame may also become the norm.
summary
With geely's entry, the smart phone market pattern has become more and more confusing, no one can guarantee the future vivo, OPPO will not go to build a car, and even no one can guarantee that Weilai, Xiaopeng, the ideal will not enter the smart phone market can often only say that the times are changing, only to keep up with the torrent of the times, in order to be invincible in one after another blood rush.