Meizu issued a statement today refuting online rumors about the company's "bankruptcy restructuring, business suspension, and smartphone market exit," vowing to pursue legal action against those responsible for spreading false information.
Simultaneously, Meizu announced it will suspend in-house hardware development for new domestic smartphone products and is actively seeking third-party hardware partners. The company assured that existing operations will remain unaffected. Meizu stated it will undergo a comprehensive strategic transformation, shifting from a hardware-centric approach to an AI-driven software product focus in the new AI era, aiming to build a sustainable enterprise centered around the Flyme open ecosystem.
Responding to this development, Li Nan, founder of Angry Miao and former president of Meizu's Meilan division, commented on social media that the situation essentially stems from a series of strategic errors.
Li revealed that as early as 2017, he predicted the smartphone industry would hit its peak with the Matthew Effect (where the strong get stronger) becoming increasingly pronounced. He believed the only path to securing a position in the industry's final landscape was through deeper strategic integration with Alibaba. This was the core reason he pushed for Alibaba's investment in Meizu at that time.
However, this strategic vision ultimately failed. Li admitted that Meizu's systems department (the Flyme team) insisted on pursuing independent backend revenue, mistakenly believing their capabilities surpassed those of Alibaba, one of the world's top internet companies. This miscalculation regarding core requirements led Meizu to refuse conceding certain benefits in exchange for Alibaba's deeper support, rendering what was originally a strong hand of "two aces" ineffective. Li emphasized that failing to sacrifice "Flyme's backend revenue sovereignty" to secure the Alibaba partnership was a critical turning point in Meizu's decline.
After missing the opportunity with Alibaba, Meizu attempted to explore new directions, such as venturing into the electric vehicle sector. However, Li believes these efforts were essentially unable to reverse the overall situation, leading to his decision to leave the company in 2019.
The following is the original text from his social media post:
Actually, back in 2017, I realized the entire smartphone industry was approaching its peak, and the Matthew Effect would become apparent.
So the only way to get a ticket to the endgame was to form a tighter bond with Alibaba. That was the most important reason I worked to facilitate Alibaba's investment in Meizu.
Unfortunately, the entire systems department at Meizu still wanted to generate its own revenue, believing their backend capabilities were superior to one of the world's strongest internet companies.
Yet this was Alibaba's core demand regarding Meizu. This led to our strong hand of "two aces" ultimately becoming useless.
Subsequently, although some initiatives were undertaken, including persuading company leadership to begin researching electric cars, fundamentally, it couldn't change the bigger picture. That's why I left in 2019.
In 2023, a new opportunity actually emerged: AI Devices.
But if you want to win, you must discard past baggage because the required core competencies have changed.
So, to transform, you must shut down many businesses and lay off many employees.
Subsequent sales of products like Ploud and Meta Glasses proved that competition in this new arena isn't easy either; you absolutely must focus and use elite forces to attack the market.
But it's certainly a high-growth sector where startups still have opportunities. It offers higher odds of success compared to the smartphone market already dominated by the Matthew Effect.
So, essentially, it's still a series of strategic decision-making errors.
Not paying the price (Flyme's backend revenue sovereignty) to bind with Alibaba.
Not catching the wave of electric vehicles.
Not making drastic cuts and going all-in on the new direction when the AI window of opportunity appeared.
These actions fully demonstrate that knowing what to do isn't enough to win.
If you don't pay the price, you gain nothing.
If you don't bet everything, you can't win anything.
These are actually very simple business principles.
But when it comes to actually doing them, they are very, very difficult to implement.
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