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Author| Yu Huiru Editor| Luo Lijuan
There has been new progress in the "making of mobile phones" by car maniac Li Shufu.
Recently, according to Caijing, Xingji Times, a mobile phone company under Geely Group, is in contact with Meizu to negotiate an acquisition and is currently in the due diligence stage.
In response, Geely responded, "We do not comment on market rumors, the high-end mobile phone research and development business of the Star Era is progressing in an orderly manner, and we hope to create an open and integrated ecological partnership." Meizu replied to the outside world: "Thanks for the concern for Meizu technology, there is no relevant news at present." ”
From the auspicious point of view, this may be traceable. On September 28 last year, Hubei Xingji Times Technology Co., Ltd., founded by Li Shufu, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, officially announcing that it would invest 10 billion yuan to specialize in the high-end mobile phone market. Today, the veil of Li Shufu's mobile phone has been lifted.
The final direction of the deal remains to be seen. If so, what does it mean for both companies?
"If the acquisition comes true, I think it will be an opportunity for Meizu to be reborn." An industry observer told all-weather technology, "With the current situation and market position of Meizu, it is difficult to return to the mainstream position without injecting external capital." ”
Shen Tianyang, an overseas TMT analyst at Changhe Investment, also expressed the same view, believing that the smart phone track is fiercely competitive and requires a lot of investment in research and development. Geely wants to make its own ecological barrier, which is not an easy task. On the other hand, "It is more difficult for Meizu to enter the first echelon again, and if there is support from a group like Geely at the capital level, there is still a chance to turn over." ”
Meizu is the earliest layout of smart phones of domestic mobile phone brands, Meizu M8 is the first large-screen full-touch smart phone in China, but also set a sales of 22 million units of brilliant. At its peak, Meizu's market valuation reached 12.97 billion yuan.
Today, Meizu has become an "others" in mobile phone shipments, and even its market share has fallen by 0.1% at one point. At the end of last year, the official also announced that Flyme's mobile phone cloud backup was about to be discontinued.
But if the acquisition is solid, it means that Meizu can meet other friends on the road of the popular smart car. However, in comparison, Xiaomi, Huawei, etc. are actively choosing to enter the car track, while Meizu is passively entering.
It is also believed that after the cooperation between the two sides, Geely can swallow this brand, which also means that Meizu is officially coming to an end.
Meizu's embarrassment
Compared with other domestic mobile phone manufacturers, Meizu once ran the fastest and had its own insistence on mobile phones, but eventually deviated from the runway because of closure.
In the barbaric era of smart phones, Meizu was the earliest domestic mobile phone brand to lay out smart phones. Born in 2009, Meizu M8 innovatively adopts the Mymobile operating system based on Windows CE 6.0, equipped with the same Samsung processor and multi-touch large screen of iPhone 3GS, becoming the first large-screen full-touch smart phone in China.
The Meizu M8 became popular after its listing. Although this mobile phone is far from perfect, only two months after listing, sales reached 100,000 units, and in five months, sales exceeded 500 million yuan, creating a sales miracle.
Lei Jun was also a big fan of Meizu. Many insiders remember that Lei Jun took out a Meizu M8 from his pocket on multiple dinner occasions to explain to others.
That was Meizu's most high-profile era. At that time, Huang Zhang, the founder of Meizu, even boldly said: "Don't be China's apple, be the world's Meizu." ”
But in fact, Meizu only became the "Meizu of Huangzhang" in the end.
Huang Zhang's pursuit of the ultimate mobile phone has made Meizu - he does not care about anything except products. But he also took the company to the other extreme.
Huang Zhang has publicly stated that he has refused Lei Jun's investment in Meizu. In the eyes of the outside world, this may be one of the most serious mistakes made by Huang Zhang.
The result of Huang Zhang's rejection of Lei Jun later became known to everyone: in 2010, Lei Jun took Lin Bin and others to establish Xiaomi in Beijing, while Huang Zhang chose to "retire" after the release of M9 and handed over the company to Bai Yongxiang, another founder of Meizu.
Bai Yongxiang once admitted in an interview that the rise of Xiaomi shocked Meizu, and Meizu missed the blowout period of smart phones. "The smartphone industry can't support small and beautiful products, and Meizu is left behind."
In the following years, Meizu's development continued to suffer.
In 2014, Ma Lin, former vice president of Meizu, led some backbones to jump to LeTV to cause a crisis in the company, Huang Zhang convened an employee meeting on the ninth day of the New Year, announced the return, and decided that Meizu should make three changes: expand the product line, introduce external investment, and take out 20% of the personal shares to start the employee stock ownership plan.
But that return was only a few months long. After introducing Ali's $590 million investment, Huang Zhang handed over his daily work to Bai Yongxiang and Li Nan and turned back to the background.
In the following year, Meizu's former senior vice president and CMO Li Nan set up a sub-brand of Meizu, Meilan, which focuses on thousands of yuan machines, and since then, Meizu has rapidly attacked from "small and beautiful" to "big factory", and won 20 million shipments in one fell swoop; in 2016, Meizu released 14 new machines at a monthly rate, increasing the total shipment to 22 million units, reaching the peak in Meizu's history.
While expanding at a high speed, costs continue to increase. In the financial report disclosed by shareholder Tianyin, Meizu lost 1.3 billion yuan from 2015 to the first half of 2016.
The feud with Qualcomm may be another "fatal" mistake made by Meizu. Because of the refusal to pay Qualcomm patent fees, Meizu chose MediaTek, which directly led to the "Meizu Pro 7 tragedy" and fell under the name of "Wannian MediaTek". The ensuing chain reaction has left Meizu, which is already on the decline, chaotic.
In 2017, Meizu founder Huang Zhang announced a comeback, in order to focus the product on the high-end market, Huang Zhang led the cut of the sales pivot of the Meilan series at that time, and launched the Meizu 15, 16, 17, 18 four series. During the period, the "Meizu Three Musketeers" Bai Yongxiang, Yang Yan and Li Nan also left their posts one after another.
At the Meizu 18 series conference in March last year, Meizu announced in a high-profile manner that starting from the 18 series, Meizu will give up the Internet advertising revenue of new products, provide consumers with real pure hardware and pure systems, and create zero advertising (the system comes with no advertising), zero push, zero pre-installed "three zero" mobile phones.
Image source: Meizu conference
However, in only half a year, Meizu's "three zeros" ideal fell in front of reality.
As of the beginning of September last year, reports on Meizu's official social platform and official website about the "triple zero" content had been deleted.
In this regard, Meizu responded in a letter to Meizu users that in the face of fierce competition, Meizu decided to make adjustments after repeated deliberations, and Flyme will maintain a consistent operating strategy with the industry. Meizu said that the "three zero mobile phone" is a very radical attempt and a challenge to the rules of the industry. While making business adjustments, Meizu 18 and Meizu 18 Pro models are not affected by policy adjustments.
On the second day after announcing the adjustment policy, Meizu announced on Weibo that after 1269 days, Meizu returned.
As a sub-brand of Meizu's main cost-effectiveness, Charm Blue has attracted many young consumers with its low price, rich colors and high cost performance of hardware configuration. Since 2015, Meizu has shipped more than 20 million units for three consecutive years, which is inseparable from the contribution of the Charm Blue digital series and note series.
On January 12, Charm Blue launched the Charm Blue 10 series, priced at 699-899 yuan, which is defined as a "smart phone basic model". This is far from Huang Zhang's focus on high-end play.
Multiple paths to save themselves
If you add a footnote to Meizu in the development of the entire industry, "radical change" may be the most appropriate.
In the past decade, Meizu has also tried to change many times, and its fate has undergone many changes, such as small and beautiful routes, machine sea tactics, cost-effective strategies, and streamlining strategies... It's just that in the change again and again, Meizu has gradually become a marginal role in the mobile phone industry.
Eight years ago, Meizu accepted a $590 million investment from Alibaba and began a strategic partnership with Haier. The former is an Internet giant that needs no question, and the latter is also a pioneer in the field of smart homes.
This is a rare open attitude of Meizu in the process of transformation and development, and it is obviously a choice that the company has to change.
In 2014, after Huang Zhang's return, he met with many industrial investors. The thigh list that Huang Zhang wants to hold has companies such as Gree, Tencent, and Alibaba. However, Huang Zhang skipped these two companies and chose Ali because "Gree and Meizu's corporate culture are different" and "Tencent did not realize the importance of terminals".
At that time, Huang Zhang mentioned in an email to the company's employees: "I am fully aware that in today's fierce competition for smart phones, with limited profit distribution, enterprises and employees are losers. ”
In the eyes of the outside world, Meizu hugged the thigh, and the future development will be more smooth. But obviously, in the cooperation between Meizu and Ali, Ali is the one with high "cost performance", and it will implant a large number of applications in Meizu mobile phones, that is, Meizu has become the entrance of Ali's father on the mobile end. Even, many models of Meizu's Meizu brand have adopted the Ali YunOS system.
In the face of powerful investors, a little careless, "thigh" may become a "big knife", but in addition to holding Ali's thigh, what other choice does Meizu have?
The later story is well known to everyone, and ali's cooperation with Meizu also broke up in 2017. Ali proposed to divest at Meizu's board of directors, and Meizu's system replaced YunOS with Android in one upgrade.
The continuous increase of smart home categories is another important action of Meizu's initiative to change.
In 2016, under the impetus of Li Nan, Meizu recruited talents related to smart home products and formally established this department, successively adding smart hardware, smart home and other product categories.
At that time, Meizu's smart home business was roughly divided into two categories, one was the software department located at the headquarters, responsible for creating a Xiaomi"-like "Mijia" App and accessing other third-party home appliance brands; the other was the design of bracelets, headphones and other hardware, which was established in 2014 by the Shenzhen branch.
However, this business, which has little to do with mobile phones, was cut after Huang Zhang's second return. Before being cut, Meizu smart home has access to more than 20 brands, controlling and restricting more than 100 products.
Three years later, Meizu revived the smart home business.
At the end of 2020, the Meizu headquarters building hung a large poster of "Welcome to Lipro", implying that the company will enter the smart home field. The business preferred the lighting series products to cut in. At the same time, Meizu put forward the strategy of "one body and two wings", that is, with flagship mobile phones as the core, smart home and smart wearable business in parallel, jointly forming a new driving force for the future development of the enterprise.
Source: Meizu official website
On January 12, Meizu winter new product launch, unlike in the past, Meizu will spend most of the time on the cool brand and smart home, leaving only a short period of time for the mobile phone.
For the products launched by Meizu, the market response is not enthusiastic. In the Meizu Tmall flagship store, the sales of Meizu Lipro series smart home products are not high. A LED bulb with the highest sales of LED single lamps in the store is 100+ per month.
Different from the "small and beautiful" playing style of mobile phone products, Meizu has some "quick success" in the smart home business. At the end of May last year, Meizu announced that smart home products were connected to the Hongmeng system, but its smart home products had very few categories. This behavior is even considered by the market to be "rubbing" Huawei's Hongmeng heat.
Even if it is not optimistic about the market, Meizu still has confidence. The Lipro series of smart products has been labeled "high-end" from the beginning of preheating. At the beginning of last year, Meizu said it would become the top three high-end smart homes in China within three years.
Zhang Yi, the founder of Ai Media Consulting, also mentioned in an interview with the media that no mobile phone manufacturer can stand firm for a long time, as long as it insists on not dying, it can find opportunities in development.
Meizu has a certain reputation among Chinese consumers, if you want to return to the head of the market, you can only make efforts from the professional market, but relying solely on the company's own strength, the opportunity is not large.
Is it rebirth, or is it the end?
Cell phone companies that don't build cars are not good tech companies. In 2021, Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc. will meet on the track of smart cars.
In this regard, some industry insiders believe that the smart phone market dividend is gradually retreating, the smart car market is developing rapidly, and mobile phone manufacturers have taken a fancy to the latter's huge market prospects; in addition, mobile phone manufacturers have a certain experience base in terms of intelligence and operating system in addition to having supply chain advantages.
Geely is a case of doing the opposite.
In September last year, when mobile phone manufacturers were building cars, Geely Group established Hubei Xingji Times Technology Co., Ltd. and signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone to officially announce its entry into the field of mobile phones. The project is headquartered in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, positioning the high-end smart phone market, integrating global technology and resources, and serving the global market.
"In the future, cross-border to build a user ecological chain, according to the law to build a corporate moat has become a major trend, mobile phones can link the Internet of Vehicles, satellite Internet, to create a rich consumption scenario, strengthen the ecosystem, to provide users with a more convenient, more intelligent, Internet of Everything multi-screen interactive life experience." Li Shufu said when talking about the reasons for making mobile phones.
Although compared with the complex structure of the car parts, the mobile phone hardware is much simpler, which makes Geely, which has been in the automotive circle for more than 20 years full of confidence.
However, for Geely, forming a software and hardware team and assembling talents is the first threshold it needs to face to enter the mobile phone industry, and acquisition is the best entry strategy.
"(Acquisition) This thing will be of greater significance to Geely itself, if it is made of mobile phones from scratch, it is quite difficult, to acquire a current market share is relatively weak, and then there are some basic manufacturers in hand will be faster." Shen Tianyang, an overseas TMT analyst at Changhe Investment, told All-Weather Technology that the smart phone track is fiercely competitive and requires a lot of research and development investment. It is not an easy task to make your own ecological barrier.
Although Meizu has been reduced to a marginal role, it has a complete mobile phone team and also has the genes to make high-end mobile phones.
For Meizu, being acquired may not be a bad thing.
Shen Tianyang also mentioned that it is more difficult for Meizu to enter the first echelon again, "If there is a group like Geely to give support at the capital level, there is still a chance to turn over." ”
According to the global smartphone shipment report released by market research agency Canallys in the fourth quarter of 2021, in the fourth quarter of 2021, the world's top five mobile phone manufacturers together won 71% of the market share, while Meizu and other "Others" manufacturers can share only 29% of the market share.
There are also views that mobile phone companies without scale are difficult to survive in the market after all, and being "annexed" by Geely is already the best destination for Meizu, but this also means that "Meizu" is coming to an end.
What sparks will eventually be sparked by the two sides has not yet been revealed. However, with the experience of the previous failure, this time Meizu may be able to choose a better option.