Meizu seemingly quits the smartphone business, as the company plans to focus on AI. This news does not come as a shock, but it is still a bit surprising. I’ll explain why soon, but let’s first see what happened.
Meizu has decided to quit the smartphone business to focus on AI
A well-known tipster, Roland Quandt, reported that Meizu said that the company is “All in on AI”. He also said that the meaning behind it is “no more phones from us”. The company is stopping production on “traditional phones”, it’s said.
To quote the company exactly: “Meizu has decided to go All in AI and will stop traditional “smartphone” projects”. The company will focus on the creation of “tomorrow’s devices” driven by AI.
Meizu was acquired by Geely back in 2022
As some of you may know, Meizu was acquired by Geely back in 2022. Geely is a Chinese car maker, for those of you who are out of the loop. Meizu did make some phones since then, but not a lot.
Considering that Meizu barely releases any phones every year, some sort of change was expected. Meizu’s CEO, Shen Ziyu, did note that smartphone consumers are now taking a longer time to upgrade their devices.
It seems like Meizu is canceling the development of its upcoming smartphone models, the Meizu 21 Pro, Meizu 22, and Meizu 23. Shen said that the move away from the smartphone business actually resonates with Meizu’s history.
The company started off as an MP3 manufacturer
Some of you may know that Meizu started off as an MP3 manufacturer. It did not start as a smartphone manufacturer. It did switch to the smartphone business at one point, and it did great… for a while. Many expected great things from Meizu, but things took the wrong turn.
Shen added that Meizu is fully ready to embrace AI. The company seems to be planning to launch a new mobile operating system tailored for the AI era. Some sort of an AI hardware product is also coming later this year.
Meizu does reassure its consumers that support existing products will remain live, so no worries there.
2024-02-19 15:06:19