Meizu undoubtedly had the best cards of that era. In supply chain, it has the best relationship with Samsung. The latest Orion processor comes with a top-level 2K screen, which only Meizu has. At that time, the unique "silent aesthetics" was really worthy of being listed, and Lei Jun's cost-effective way was to learn from Huang Zhang and use local tyrants. 14 years, Ali invested 590 million dollars. A lot of capital injection+top hardware+excellent design+the ultimate cost performance, properly choose a son, excuse me, what is the loss? But no one expected that in just three years, Meizu has changed from a mighty dark horse to a "small factory in Zhuhai" with insufficient market share of 19 years 1%, dying and closing down at any time.
There are different opinions about the reasons why Meizu declined so quickly. Some people say that "MediaTek will remain unchanged for 10,000 years", while others can attribute it to "the failure of Pro7", "yellow polishing", "quality control" and "shortage". However, the rise and fall of Meizu cannot be simply attributed to several failed mobile phone products. In order to find out the reasons for the rise and fall of Meizu, we must try our best to understand what happened inside and outside the peak period of Meizu company.
Meizu is in trouble
On the evening of the Spring Festival in 20 14, several elders of Meizu looked at each other with their eyes wide open on the second floor of their villa in Huang Zhang. Finally, someone can't help but say to Huang Zhang, who has retired for three years, "Meizu is in trouble". The internal inventory pressure of the company, MX2 is a product launched on 202 1, but by 20 13, there are still hundreds of thousands of stocks, which is even worse for Meizu, which is already short of money. More importantly, the outside world has changed. 20 1 1, 10, with the official opening of Lei Jun's "1999" Internet mobile phone era, Xiaomi ranked first in China market share (14.97%) with sales of 60.8 million units in just three years. In contrast, Meizu is eclipsed. At one time, 360, ov and Huawei joined the track one after another, and LeTV was even more ruthless. It dug up two vice presidents of Meizu with more than 30 people and directly dug them all away. Under the internal and external troubles, Meizu once fell into a dangerous situation of making a fortune. Huang Zhang had to come out for the first time to clean up this mess.
return
At Meizu headquarters, Huang Zhang told more than 200 employees, "I realized it was too late". The most important thing Huang Zhang did after his comeback: 1, the adjustment of the shareholding structure (there was no profit distribution before), and 2, the introduction of $590 million from Ali to ease the pressure on the company's capital (just like swallowing the devil's fruit, this capital injection needs to reach a certain market share).
Deviate from the trajectory of fate
After Meizu got the money, it comprehensively benchmarked Xiaomi, adopted sea tactics, increased marketing investment, launched offline channels and expanded on a large scale. Benchmark Xiaomi: 1. Strategically attack Xiaomi. Xiaomi was a top student at that time, so copying his homework was undoubtedly the best choice. 2. Huang Zhang and Lei Jun's personal feud, Huang Zhang also often fired at Xiaomi in forums and Weibo, and thus began the strategy of comprehensively countering Xiaomi.
Charm Blue was born in Redmi, engaged in sea tactics, and Xiaomi has an ecological chain. Meizu immediately joined hands with Haier and Ali to create a "LifeKit Intelligent Hardware Platform". Meizu's price war is only priced with Xiaomi's model. The most iconic event is that after the release of MX4, Lei Jun Weibo 1799 swiped the screen. There is no winner in the price war, but Meizu definitely loses the most. In 20 15, Meizu's net loss reached an astonishing103.7 billion yuan, which made Meizu, which has always had a weak capital chain, worse. Moreover, because of 16' s machine-sea tactics, new machines were launched every month, and even three press conferences were held in a month, which turned the mobile phone press conference into a "concert". That year Meizu released 60 * *. It is a good thing to enrich the product line, but the pace is too big, and it is difficult for Meizu's supply chain, R&D and team to keep up. So MediaTek has been polished for generations, and the appearance has been changed to a new mold and barely listed. There are many models released, which are dazzling, and even it is difficult for users who have just met Meizu to distinguish the big differences.
collapse
20 million in 20 15 and 22 million in 20 16. Most of the models are low-end machines, and the profits are meager. At the same time, there are still some quality control problems on some models, such as power jump, glue leakage on the frame, obvious gap between the fuselage and the screen, loose SIM card slot and physical keys, and so on. The sudden surge in models also caught the Flyme team off guard. There are too many bugs in the Flyme5/6 era, and the name "bug" came from that era. The adaptation workload of many models is too large, which also makes Meizu's system unable to upgrade in time all the year round, using the Android 6.0/7.0 bottom layer that will remain unchanged for ten thousand years. Distressed marketing, because of the injection of Ali funds, Meizu, which has money at hand, increased its marketing investment, and Meizu set off the first "world war" in the mobile phone industry. On the surface, when they called each other friends and businessmen, Meizu directly said, "You are rubbish", "You are a slow and ugly millet" and "People who bought rice 3 are probably brainless diaosi". At that time, mobile phone brands were basically touched by Meizu, and even the Uniqlo incident had to be rectified. Unscrupulous erotic marketing and malicious porcelain touching strategy have brought great stains to Meizu's brand value. It has also made the image of "literary youth, pursuing and ingenuity" shaped over the years gradually collapse, and it seems to be schizophrenic. ......
Dragon warrior
On June 20 16, Qualcomm sued Meizu in Beijing Intellectual Property Court, claiming that it infringed the patents related to 3G and 4G, exposing the dispute between Meizu and Qualcomm for seven years. This feud began in the M8 era in 2009. Qualcomm took the initiative to discuss cooperation with Meizu. Meizu was dissatisfied with Qualcomm's patent charging model, and had excellent relations with Samsung and MediaTek at that time, so it flatly refused, and the dragon slayer was born. Qualcomm has a retrospective clause. All the products of your company before, involving Qualcomm patents, have to pay the previous fees in one lump sum, otherwise they will not cooperate, which means Meizu will have to pay again from M8 era. And Meizu, an electronics factory that makes MP3, has no money to pay? However, when Meizu and Qualcomm went to court, domestic mobile phone manufacturers not only didn't hit people when they were down, but even some big manufacturers found Meizu privately and offered to provide legal and financial support, which was a rare unity in the domestic mobile phone industry. Qualcomm's feud didn't come to an end until 16 12.30, but by this time Meizu had entered a recession, and Meizu had lost too much in its bad relationship with Qualcomm. 17 years, Meizu was half a year late, because Meizu polished MediaTek P 10 for a whole year, but P 10 did not support dual cameras at all, and its performance and signal, which had been criticized for a long time, were also limited by MediaTek chips. However, Samsung Orion delayed shipment for half a year with its own baseband signal, making the high-end road of Pro5 and Pro6 clear. If Meizu had used Qualcomm's processor earlier, or if Samsung's processor hadn't fallen off the chain, what would Meizu look like now?
get into trouble
Meizu, which entered 17, has been strong for a long time, but Pro7 released seven months later dragged it into the abyss. /kloc-After Ali injected capital in 0/4, Meizu vigorously developed offline channels, expanding from 1000 to 2000. The offline channel has not been transformed, it is tepid, and even the specialty stores have raised prices at will. The profit of Meizu mobile phone itself is not high, and a mobile phone is urgently needed to expand the premium space and boost market confidence. In fact, before the controversial Yang Tuolai, Bai Yongxiang had already confirmed the design of Pro7 at 15. At that time, Meizu specially invited the famous American design company "Frog" to design at a high price. Just to do the back split screen, I spent 60 million yuan to get a 50% discount on the next year's 6 18 and sell the unfinished goods ... This "flagship of the year" was built by Meizu Company. The final outcome can be imagined. Today, I also feel that the secondary screen is of little use value, but under the background of the high homogeneity of 17 mobile phones, it is precisely a small factory in Zhuhai that dares to take such a big risk to try to break this deadlock. After this failure, Meizu's decline is difficult to reverse. Huang Zhang once again took over Meizu, which made Lao Bai, the head of Pro7, gradually quit the management, the charm blue business was laid off, Li Nan left, and the mass layoffs reached 2,000. A large number of offline stores also closed down, so Huang Zhang had to choose to return to the boutique route, and Meizu once again embarked on a small and beautiful road. But there may not be much time left for Meizu now.
Quzhong
Mobile phone is a heavy asset industry. R&D, operation, marketing, stocking, channels, after-sales and so on all need huge funds. As Huang Zhang said, if capital operation is introduced as soon as possible, it is not Lenovo that acquires moto, but Meizu; If you have money and can afford Qualcomm's license fee, Meizu won't have to polish MediaTek for 10 thousand years; If there is money to make up for the shortcomings of the supply chain, Meizu will not face a shortage crisis at every critical time. And Meizu's financial situation has been bad. If the direction is wrong, it will be difficult to turn over, which is really helpless.
Meizu is a design-driven company. Its pursuit of the appearance and feel of the mobile phone, as well as its craftsman-like focus, has been recognized and sought after by countless people, but Meizu is immersed in this glory and gradually lost its way. Meizu stubbornly polished the radian of the back cover and the width of the border repeatedly, and did not keenly perceive the changes in the market, leaving the mainstream direction of mobile phone upgrade. I'm sorry, Meizu's proud touch is not as good as that of physical stores for parents and children, which is hard to understand. However, the atmosphere of random price increase and sky-high promotion in offline stores has dispelled people's enthusiasm and desire for buying. But there is no doubt that Meizu has a group of people who really love and seriously make mobile phones. Although they are so miserable today, what they made is still different from others. At least I think Meizu's mobile phone is one of the most beautiful Android phones.