Meizu Crusoe: From the peak to the trough, and finally sold his body to change his surname

Author/ Author of "Finance and Economics" Weekly Wu Di

Editor/ You Yong

On January 21, rumors of Geely's proposed acquisition of Meizu attracted attention. In the mobile phone market, which has a very stable pattern, Meizu's market volume has been extremely weak, and it is not surprising that it has been acquired. Geely recently announced plans to enter the mobile phone industry.

Neither Geely nor Meizu responded positively, and Meizu only forwarded an interview with Qualcomm on Meizu CEO Huang Zhipan on the official Weibo. But Geely and Meizu have an incentive to cooperate. In September 2021, Geely established Star Times Company and announced that it would invest 10 billion yuan to specialize in the high-end mobile phone market.

The final direction of this transaction is still unknown. A person close to Meizu told Caijing Weekly: "With Meizu's current situation, if it can sell at a good price, it will definitely be a huge surprise." In his view, Meizu founder Huang Zhang may not have the heart to fight after experiencing the ups and downs of Meizu mobile phones.

A former Meizu dealer told the "Finance World" weekly: "Whether it is acquired or not has no impact on the current situation of the mobile phone circle." For Meizu, which has created the first domestic smart phone and once led the trend of mobile phones, this may be the most heartfelt sentence.

Meizu got up early in the mobile phone industry and rushed to a late set. As one of the first manufacturers to explore smart phones in China, Meizu was once respected by users because of the importance attached to products. Huang Zhang, who regards himself as a xiaomi teacher, once shouted out that the target was the top three, "otherwise I would be embarrassed to go out."

However, Xiaomi has stabilized in the top three, but Meizu mobile phones have been in the "others" in these years, and the share is outside the top ten, which can't help but be lamented. Nowadays, Huang Zhang has not appeared on the Meizu forum for a long time, which was once his spiritual home, and he likes to interact with netizens here and even share his life status.

Tough Meizu

In recent years, Meizu's brand power has been declining, and mobile phone sales have been dismal. According to data released by market research agency BCI, in January 2021, Meizu's market share was only 0.1%.

The positioning of Meizu mobile phones has always been blurred. Some people commented that it is a niche brand, and it must lean in the direction of the mass brand. In the multi-hundreds of billions of dollars of mobile phone market, Meizu, which is not satisfied with only small and beautiful manufacturers, has climbed to a peak of 20 million units, but it has fallen rapidly because of various mistakes. Combined with the data of statistical agencies, Meizu's annual sales are only about two or three million units, less than a fraction of the top five brands.

At the same time, compared with Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and other manufacturers, Meizu's side business is basically no improvement. In March 2021, Meizu announced the launch of 30 mobile phones, 0 advertisements, 0 pre-installed 0 pushes, "to provide consumers with real pure hardware, pure systems", earning enough gimmicks. However, after only half a year, Meizu finally canceled this measure because of too much competitive pressure and returned to the old road of advertising to make money.

Meizu initially dared to do this, mainly because the sales were not large, and it was no longer the manufacturer that shipped tens of millions of units a year. Machine sales are not large, and the revenue that advertising can bring is very limited.

The sharp rise in Meizu shipments occurred in 2015, when Meizu mobile phone shipments exceeded 20 million units. Compared to the previous year's 4 million scale, it has doubled several times. This gave it signs of getting rid of the "small factory" label for a while.

Behind the surge in shipments is the change of playing style and strategy. Meizu, which has always adhered to the boutique route, has also carried out machine sea tactics, released more than 6 models a year, and launched an all-out war with Xiaomi in the low-end market.

The following year, Meizu became even more frantic, releasing more than a dozen new models throughout the year, rolling forward at a rate of at least one per month. Huang even shouted the slogan of "advancing into the IPO" that year. But in fact, the increase in sales has not brought about an increase in efficiency. According to the announcement of Tianyin Holdings' subsequent investment in Meizu, Meizu's net loss in 2015 exceeded 1 billion yuan.

The price of the jihai tactic is that Meizu products lose their small and beautiful characteristics, and the ultra-fast product rhythm no longer allows it to pursue careful polishing as in the past, and begins to pay attention to no mistakes, which consumes the trust of some fans. "Tasted" is what Meizu fans later used to evaluate Meizu.

The Pro 5 released by Meizu in 2015 received unanimous praise. In the same period, because the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 was not powerful, it led to the collective overturning of the flagship machine of other domestic brands, but Meizu used Samsung's CPU and successfully avoided danger.

In fact, Meizu's choice of Samsung also has its own difficulties. Unwilling to pay more patent fees to Qualcomm, Meizu once had a bad relationship with Qualcomm and chose to use Samsung and MediaTek chips. Meizu and Qualcomm have a long-standing feud, and the two companies once went to court over patent issues. Even at that time, the industry also formed an "anti-Qualcomm alliance", in which Meizu played an important role. But meizu and Qualcomm relations are clearly unwise.

Qualcomm has a unique influence in the field of mobile phone chips. Due to the lack of Qualcomm chips in the follow-up, coupled with the fact that mediatek chips are not excellent, to a certain extent, Meizu's next products have gradually lost their competitiveness in the market. Although Meizu and Qualcomm reached a reconciliation in 2016, they reconciled. However, the previous period of struggle still allowed Meizu to miss the most golden time for the development of domestic mobile phones.

Some of the reasons meizu missed that period came from its own choices, and some of them were prominent internal organizational management problems.

As mentioned earlier, Meizu chose MediaTek, but the MediaTek chip at that time did have a big gap with Qualcomm's chip in performance and experience. The relatively high pricing strategy of Meizu MediaTek models failed to persuade consumers to pay.

By the end of 2016, Xiaomi MIX triggered a wave of full-screen waves, but Meizu still did the opposite in 2017, insisting on launching a non-full-screen Pro 7. This has triggered a very serious product crisis. This mobile phone equipped with MediaTek processors has seriously hurt Meizu's vitality. The dual-screen design did not impress consumers, the inventory backlog was very serious, Meizu repeatedly reduced prices, and even sold at the price of waist chops a few months after the sale, but it failed to completely clean up the inventory. The defeat of pro7 also directly led to the departure of Bai Yongxiang of the "Meizu Three Musketeers".

Due to the cruel competition of low-end machines and the inability to make a profit, Meizu had to cut off the main sales force of the Charm Blue series after going downhill. In the eyes of many people, meizu's real decline began with abandoning charm blue and turning to high-end. It does not have the basis to break through the high-end market alone.

In addition to the failed product strategy, the rapid expansion of the team also brought contradictions in internal organizational management. A Meizu employee once complained that within Meizu at that time, the airborne team could not convince the original team, and they were all in charge, with serious internal friction. Under the increasingly strong demand for commercialization, some incidents have also triggered internal disagreements and quarrels.

Meizu operating system Flyme frequently pushes advertisements to users for advertising revenue, and in the second half of 2016, due to an overly vulgar content push, Meizu's marketing team had a fierce quarrel with the Flyme commercialization team. The two sides disagreed on Meizu's values and business bottom line perceptions, but Huang Zhang and core management did not speak out.

Internal contradictions breed and intensify during Meizu's rapid expansion period, resulting in Meizu losing some of its popularity. In 2018, Zhang Jia, then director of Meizu's Cultural and Creative Department, publicly questioned the ability of Meizu's senior vice president Yang Zhe, officially exposing Meizu's civil unrest to everyone.

When Meizu was in trouble, friends and merchants were skyrocketing, OV relied on the channel tentacles of the sinking market to open stores overwhelmingly, while Huawei gradually stood in the high-end market with the help of Kirin chips, and shipments and brand potential were rising rapidly. The Meizu team also suffered from crazy poaching, and the backbone left one after another.

The above-mentioned people close to Meizu told the "Finance world" weekly that Huang Zhang's entanglement with capital, confrontation with Qualcomm, and retreat from retreat in the golden period of smart phone development are enough fatal choices.

The game with capital

For a long time, Huang Zhang was repelled by capital. This has a lot to do with his past experiences. When he was the general manager of Aegean in his early years, he was forced to leave due to a disagreement in ideas, which made him very concerned about the controlling right after founding Meizu in 2003, and his desire to control was extremely strong. Meizu was the earliest company to do MP3, and the development of Apple's iPhone made Huang Zhang feel the crisis, keenly aware that MP3 would be eliminated by mobile phones, so as to invest in making mobile phones.

Huang Zhang's enterprise adheres to the concept of endogenous development, relying on the company's own money to promote the company's own development. There is no doubt that there is no shackle of capital, so that Meizu can maintain independence in product concept. Excluding external interference, Meizu's products have formed their own consistent style characteristics. To this day, Huang Zhang's design is still talked about by many people. However, judging from the outside world, the rejection of capital is also considered to belong to Huang Zhang's "small entrepreneur" thinking, which constitutes the limitation of Meizu's development.

That year, before Lei Jun made a mobile phone, he consulted and visited Huang Zhang, and once hoped to cooperate with Huang Zhang in the form of investment, Meizu made a price of 1 billion yuan, Lei Jun accounted for 30% of the shares, and was the chairman. But in the end, they failed to reach a unification, and even Lei Jun introduced Lin Bin, vice president of Google China Engineering Research Institute, to Huang Zhang, hoping that Huang could take out 5% of the shares to attract Lin to join, and Huang Zhang did not agree. In the end, Lei Jun led a group of people to make Xiaomi, and became a "feud" with Meizu.

Xiaomi can rise, in addition to Lei Jun's "extreme cost performance" Internet play, it is also closely related to Lei Jun's strong financing ability.

Huang Realized the Importance of Capital in 2014. "I am fully aware that in today's fierce competition for smartphones, with limited profit distribution, both enterprises and employees are losers." Huang Zhang wrote in an email sent to all the staff that he had just returned to Meizu after the retreat. He even announced that he would give shares to employees.

He had a sudden epiphany about capital, arguing that if capital had been introduced earlier, he would not have had to painstakingly lend money to banks, "even today it is we who buy moto, not Lenovo." ”

Huang Zhang began to compromise with capital, and Meizu soon ushered in a huge investment. In 2015, Huang Zhang went to Hangzhou to meet Ma Yun. Huang Zhang smiled very happily, and his eyes narrowed into a line. Huang Zhang, who lives in a corner of Zhuhai, rarely goes far away, and his first trip to the United States was in early 2019.

This trip to Hangzhou to meet Ma Yun also gained a lot, Meizu received a $590 million investment from Alibaba. According to the "Finance world" weekly, in fact, Meizu had another choice in addition to Alibaba at that time, Qihoo 360. Both sides gave Meizu a valuation of about 10 billion yuan, but 360 asked for control, and Meizu finally chose Ali, who did not seek control.

Alibaba Investment hopes that Meizu can enrich its own ecosystem. "The investment in Meizu represents an important expansion of the Alibaba ecosystem and an important step in our mobile strategy to bring richer mobile products and experiences to users." Wang Jian, then CTO of Alibaba Group, said. According to the agreement, Meizu's mobile phone should be equipped with the YunOS system promoted by Ali at that time. Ali, which is not good at hardware, hopes to enter the mobile phone market with the help of independent OS. The cooperation with Meizu carries Ali's ambitions.

However, Ali's cooperation with Meizu is not pleasant. In 2017, Ali has completely broken with Meizu and proposed to withdraw its investment at the Meizu board. Meizu's system was upgraded to Android in one upgrade. But many of the promises Meizu made have not been fulfilled truthfully.

Later, Meizu only adopted Ali's system on several low-end charm blue models, and other main models were still promoting their own Flyme OS. In addition, Meizu followed up with JD.com, and many models chose to debut in JD.com instead of Tmall.

A series of moves completely angered Ali. A person close to Ali's investment department once told Caijing Tianxia weekly that the cooperation between the two sides was not pleasant, and Ali believed that Meizu was "perfidious".

It cannot be said that missing Ali has led to Meizu's current situation, but Meizu has indeed lost a key opportunity to ride the wind and waves with capital. Especially in mobile phones, such a "one step wrong step wrong" market, Meizu rejects capital, but may eventually have to succumb to capital.

The above-mentioned people close to Meizu hope that Meizu can get a good home in Jili this time. But he also expressed concern about the Geely acquisition, "Huang Zhang and Li Shufu are both very thoughtful and ambitious and persistent people", whether this is an ideal transaction is difficult to say.

A person close to Geely's mobile phone also told Caijing Weekly: "Geely's favorite Thing about Meizu is the Flyme OS design and development team and some intellectual property rights related to human-computer interaction communication. "One of the biggest difficulties that traditional automakers generally face in the transformation is the lack of software power.

He believes that after Huang Zhang sells the Meizu brand, if he is willing to continue to make efforts in the field of smart terminals, he will continue to do "smart home". At the beginning of 2021, Meizu launched the Lipro smart home and PANDAER fashion peripheral brands.

"According to Li Shufu's style, he will only do Geely's own brand." This also means that once the acquisition is achieved, the Meizu brand is very likely to completely lose its sense of existence.

But for Meizu today, there is no better way out than selling.

The yellow chapter that has been repeatedly advancing

Meizu has come to this crossroads at the moment, which is closely related to the personality of founder Huang Zhang.

Huang Zhang has a strong personal personality color, and those who have come into contact with him often emphasize his paranoid and maverick personality in their evaluations of him.

This kind of personality is a natural advantage for product polishing, which is also an important reason why Meizu has many fans. Huang Zhang is very stubborn about product design, hoping to guide consumer preferences rather than pander.

However, it is precisely because of the criticism of the product that Huang Zhang lacks sufficient risk awareness. An old Meizu employee once told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that other mobile phone companies are designed to give way to sales and supply chains, but Meizu design is the first, and Huang Zhang's will is the greatest. His very own personality has shaped the culture of Meizu's small workshops.

In the evaluation of the outside world, Huang Zhang is a good product manager, but not a qualified entrepreneur. Huang Zhang's several retreats and exits from the mountains are also unfavorable to meizu's development. In 2014, Huang Zhang returned to power for the first time, when Meizu was already deeply troubled by internal and external troubles. Xiaomi's growth is fierce, Lei Jun's Internet thinking is popular in the industry, and the time and space left for Meizu are becoming more and more limited.

With the rapid development of the industry, the intensification of competition, and the impetuousness of people's hearts, Meizu is also facing the challenge of retaining talents. In the industry, Meizu does not provide high treatment, and there has been no option stock incentive. The attraction to talent was far less than that of Xiaomi and LeEco at that time. Xiaomi allocated options to employees in the early days of its founding. A former meizu employee once told the "Finance and Economics World" weekly that all Meizu middle and high-level people have faced the risk of being poached, and they can get several times the treatment upgrade when they go out. At that time, a meizu R & D leader almost led the entire team to LeTV.

Huang Zhang pays too much attention to the product, and is not concerned about management. In such a period of internal turmoil, he re-emerged for the first time and returned to the core purpose of returning, one is to introduce financing, and the other is to attract and retain talents. But Huang Zhang's first comeback lasted only 2 months. According to a more common theory, Huang Zhang retreated again because he fought too hard after his return and collapsed his body.

By 2017, Huang Zhang returned for the second time, and the mobile phone industry has gone downhill. The market is saturated and sales are contracting. Meizu's always proud products have shown signs of lagging behind the industry's full-screen trend. Huang Zhang made a comeback again, wanting to reshape Meizu's influence.

According to employees at the time, Meizu was "surnamed Bai not Huang" at that time. Due to Huang Zhang's long-term retreat, Meizu's core power naturally shifted to the hands of Bai Yongxiang, a partner with whom he had started a business for many years. Huang Zhang's comeback broke the power structure within Meizu. Later, the Pro 7 and this series of failures directly led to the departure of Bai Yongxiang, who was responsible for the product.

According to the "Finance and Economics" weekly, after Huang Zhang's second return, many departments within Meizu have undergone reorganization and purging. "The company fights every day and has no intention of fighting." A Meizu employee said. In 2018, Meizu's personnel turmoil entered a white-hot stage, and various infighting began to occur. Yang Zhao, Bai Yongxiang and Yang Yan all left their jobs, and internally they also made large-scale layoffs.

In 2019, Li Nan, who introduced Ali's investment and built the Charm Blue brand, also left Meizu. Huang Zhang not only did not bless Li Nan, but instead secretly ridiculed him in the forum as "waste money", but also made the outside world criticize Huang Zhang's pattern as too small, and most of the executives who left Meizu before had an unpleasant quarrel with Huang Zhang.

Huang Zhang also had a hard time really trusting people outside the family. Meizu has been criticized as a family business, and it is reported that Huang Zhang's cousins Huang Baitao and Huang Baiqing, his sister Huang Xiaoqin and his brother Huang Zhipan all hold important positions in Meizu.

"Saying that Meizu is a family business is a low-level black, the entire high-level is one who has followed Meizu to start a business for many years, and my brother is one of the executives in the overseas marketing department." Huang Zhang has publicly responded to the question of "family business". Today, with the departure of Yang Yan, Bai Yongxiang and Li Nan and other executives, Meizu's senior management team can rarely see figures outside the family. At the beginning of 2021, Huang Zhang also gave the position of CEO of Meizu to his brother Huang Zhipan.

From the peak to the trough, in today's stable mobile phone market, Meizu's chances of breaking through are becoming more and more slim, and being acquired may be the best destination. However, five or six years ago, Meizu's valuation was still more than 10 billion yuan. But now, Meizu, whose shipments are almost negligible in the mobile phone market, are no longer valuable.

Huang Zhang once personally wrote a passage that was placed on the official website as an introduction to Meizu for several years, one of which was: "Only the unchangeable love of people can eliminate complex interference, consistently pay for the pursuit of unchanged love, create greater value and bring more wealth." That unchanging love is the dream. ”

Now, "that unchanging love" is finally going to fail to reality.

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