Will Meizu be the next hammer? | Taoran observed

For Meizu, it may be reborn under the support of new funds and management teams, or it may be completely used by Geely's strategy.

Wen | Zhao Dongshan, a reporter for China Entrepreneur

Editor| Li Wei

The source of the head image | Visual China

In the past few days, the news of Geely's proposed acquisition of Meizu has caused an uproar in the mobile phone circle and the automobile circle. Why is the buyer Geely? What is its intention in this acquisition? What will be the fate of Meizu in the future?

Many people sighed that they could not imagine that Meizu's re-entry into the public eye was rumored to be acquired. In fact, this ending is not unexpected. Over the past five years, the market has witnessed Meizu's decline, with its annual sales falling from a peak of 22 million units to no more than one million units. To the surprise of the public, the intended buyer this time is not Ali or other Internet giants that have invested in Meizu, but Geely Automobile, which suddenly announced the creation of mobile phones half a year ago.

On September 28, 2021, Geely Holdings announced its official entry into the field of mobile phones, positioning high-end smart phones, and specially established a mobile phone company, Hubei Xingji Times Technology Co., Ltd. In his speech on the same day, Li Shufu said: "Mobile phones are rapid iterations of portable mobile terminals, and are the application carriers for electronic product market verification and software innovation, which not only allows users to share innovative achievements as soon as possible, but also transfers a safe and reliable part of the results to the application of automobiles, realizing the close interaction between car machines and mobile phone software technology." ”

Li Shufu, who makes cars, cross-border mobile phones, not because mobile phone companies are also building cross-border cars, such as Xiaomi. Even the mobile phone company that has sat in the world's second seat believes that the competition is fierce and wants to turn to the smart car market, li Shufu naturally has his considerations. In a word, Li Shufu, who has been building cars for 26 years, one of the important goals should still be to hope that the mobile phone business can serve his car-making business.

Human beings have entered the intelligent era of the Internet of Everything, and the intersection between the two sides is constantly superimposed as the terminal and entrance of consumers' intelligent life. Powerful mobile terminals have become the first major terminals in the intelligent era, and the next smart terminal that attracts enterprises and capital is likely to be the car. Li Shufu has already destroyed the city in the auto market, and it is understandable to want to expand the new territory. However, since Geely set up a separate mobile phone company to do business, why should it acquire Meizu?

In fact, in the Chinese mobile phone market, Meizu's historical accumulation and reputation are not bad. With its exquisite design, extreme cost performance, and a certain fan base, the meizu M8, the first domestic flagship smartphone created in 2009, was even known as the "domestic machine emperor" at that time.

There are former Meizu employees to the media analysis, Geely to do mobile phones, hardware and supply chain may learn fast enough, software systems may not be. Doing a set of their own OS is very long, but also very troublesome, UI, account system, version iteration, etc., hundreds of people smashed down may not have a ring for two or three years, but also very affect the mobile phone experience and brand, and buy Meizu at least Flyme OS ready-made available.

For Geely, Meizu at this time is a good acquisition target - both the basis of mobile phone research and development, manufacturing, sales, and branding, and it is also in the value depression stage. It is worth mentioning that Meizu's Flyme OS operating system is called the Whampoa Military Academy of domestic custom systems, which is at the forefront of domestic mobile phones, which is what traditional car manufacturers that lack software genes need most at this stage.

In the past company's development history, Geely has also adopted the M&A strategy many times, Volvo, Proton, Lotus are all Li Shufu using mergers and acquisitions to expand the territory, in addition, Geely also acquired 9.69% of Daimler's equity to become its largest shareholder. In the past few years, around the Internet of Everything, Geely has also frequently laid out automotive chips and on-board intelligent hardware, investing in a number of enterprises such as Core Engine Technology, Yijiatong Technology, and Liancheng Intelligence, and Meizu is likely to become one of them.

It is important to be aware that building a cross-border ecological interconnection is not an easy task. There may not be an industry that attracts countless people and sends countless adventurers away like mobile phones. Previously, countless giants tried to build a cross-border intelligent ecology, such as network security giant 360, home appliance giant Gree, etc., but in the end it was difficult to make a splash in the market, and the mobile phone business could only be reduced to a foil. For Geely, it is a rational strategy to use Meizu.

However, the transaction has not yet been settled, and it depends on the degree of cooperation between the two parties. If it is a full-power merger and acquisition, for Meizu, it may be reborn under the support of new funds and management teams, or it may be completely used by Geely's strategy, resulting in the end of its mobile phone business, after all, the market has learned from the hammer mobile phone.

The hammer mobile phone founded by Luo Yonghao was also a "small and beautiful" mobile phone company like Meizu, but it was eventually defeated in the fiercely competitive mobile phone market and was acquired by ByteDance in 2019. Only one year later, the New Stone Lab formed by the original Hammer Technology Team was merged into the ByteDance education hardware team, and byteDance's mobile phone hardware business was suspended, no longer developing nut mobile phones, TNT displays and other products, and hammer nut mobile phones became a masterpiece.

Meizu is still looking forward to being able to "live" strongly. In the past few days, many fans have received postcards from Meizu. This postcard is a photograph of a plant called "Shuttles" with the words on the back —

The drought, salinity, and cold exposure of the desert make people dare not set foot on it, but the "shuttle" can tenaciously survive in the desert for a hundred years, retreating yellow sand into green soil and turning desert into an oasis. The development and rebirth in the face of challenges is the normal state of life. The meaning of the brand or life may lie in this down-to-earth power and unique love of creation.