The "last straw" that crushed Meizu phones

Author | Huang Yu

From the once "small and beautiful" to the "big ecosystem" after Geely took over, Meizu smartphones have undergone several strategic shifts and management upheavals in just a few years.

However, as the Year of the Rabbit unfolds, the signal that Meizu's rebirth over the past three years is approaching a BE grand finale seems to be getting stronger.

At the beginning of January, Meizu's CMO for China, Wan Zhiqiang, confidently announced at the New Year’s annual meeting that the Meizu 23 would debut in mid-year, challenging the "narrowest bezels in history."

But just a month later, the situation took a dramatic turn. In mid-February, news spread that the development project for the Meizu 23 had officially come to a halt, the outsourced team was laid off, and the existing manpower could no longer sustain the project's progress.

According to reports from Jiemian News, Meizu's smartphone business has effectively ceased operations and will officially delist in March 2026. The FlymeAuto vehicle business under Meizu will operate independently, and the Meizu brand may continue to exist within the Geely system.

At this time, it had only been about six months since Huang Zhipan, the younger brother of Meizu founder Huang Zhang, took over from Su Jing as the new CEO of Meizu Group.

If Meizu was once the "white moonlight" of the smartphone industry, it now resembles a survivor struggling to find breathing space in the cracks between giants.

Although Meizu's official stance has yet to confirm the abandonment of its smartphone business, this silence in an extremely competitive smartphone market may, to some extent, be the prelude to exiting, allowing the market to sense a certain impending conclusion.

This uneasy sentiment is not unfounded.

In recent years, as memory and chip prices have continued to rise, the survival space for small and medium-sized smartphone manufacturers, which already operate on thin margins, has been further compressed. Previously, some digital bloggers revealed that due to cost pressures, certain manufacturers were forced to suspend the development of the next-generation flagship phones and even faced extreme situations of exiting certain regional markets.

As a once "small and beautiful" brand, Meizu is once again thrust into the spotlight of public opinion, prompting people to ponder whether this brand, which carries countless memories of Meizu fans' youth, is truly on the verge of completely bidding farewell to the smartphone business that once defined it.

Final Struggle Fails

Meizu's current predicament was foreshadowed when the Meizu 22 was released.

Meizu and the newly appointed Huang Zhipan urgently needed a new product to regain market share, but the Meizu 22, originally planned for release during last year's 618 shopping festival, experienced two delays.

Finally, on September 15, 2025, at the annual flagship smartphone launch event themed "Homecoming," Meizu finally unveiled its next-generation flagship phone—the Meizu 22—nearly two years after the launch of its previous flagship, the Meizu 21.

At that time, Xing Ji, Meizu's CMO for China, candidly stated: "The delay in the release of the Meizu 22 has put a lot of pressure on us. Why did the Meizu 22 come so late? "In fact, apart from many unexpected influencing factors, we must also admit that the development work for the Meizu 22 is more difficult than imagined."

At the same time, he stated that the Meizu 22 is the phone that has been "refined" the longest in Meizu's history.

Soon, Huang Zhipan revealed in a media interview that the delay in the release of the Meizu 22 was mainly influenced by two factors: first, the company made some business adjustments over the past year; second, the overall growth of the smartphone industry has gradually slowed down, the competitive landscape has stabilized, and the current international economic situation has significantly increased the difficulty of corporate financing. These external environments have also prompted the company to rethink product rhythm and resource allocation.

"My goal is to hope to release a new generation flagship every May, in time for the 618 shopping festival." However, Huang Zhipan also admitted that realistically, Meizu may still need one or even two generations of products to complete a comprehensive adjustment. Meizu is still a relatively small company at this stage, and both its funding and technological accumulation lag behind leading industry players. Therefore, the second half of 2026 is a more prudent timeline for the company.

"The next generation product is likely to be released in the second half of 2026, but I will also strive to push it forward."

This is the flag set by Huang Zhipan, but as external competition becomes increasingly fierce and internal strategies waver, it currently appears that Meizu has failed to rebuild market trust through this product.

Although the Meizu 22 is officially labeled as a "flagship phone," the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen4 chip it is equipped with actually belongs to the mid-range flagship category, positioned alongside models like the Redmi Turbo4 Pro and OPPO K13 Pro, which start at under 2000 yuan. In contrast, the starting price of the Meizu 22 reaches 2999 yuan, about 1000 yuan more expensive.

In the absence of core competitiveness, such a pricing strategy undoubtedly challenges consumer loyalty.

A person close to Meizu told Wall Street Journal that the sales of the Meizu 22 not meeting expectations could be the last straw that breaks Meizu's mobile business.

When asked by the media about the shipment volume the Meizu 22 needs to achieve to support R&D and costs, Huang Zhipan once stated that even with a price of 2999 yuan, after accounting for channel fees, marketing costs, and other allocations, the Meizu 22 is still sold at a loss in hardware.

This indicates that Meizu has lost its bargaining power in the supply chain, and with insufficient smartphone sales, it is difficult to dilute costs.

Shareholder Blood Transfusion Weakens

As an old player in the smartphone industry, Meizu has experienced ups and downs for many years and once had its moments of glory in the domestic smartphone market. However, due to fierce industry competition and its own strategic decision-making errors, it has fallen into the "Others" category and has been forced to survive "small but beautiful."

To break out of its cocoon and be reborn, Meizu decided to sell itself.

In July 2022, this "fallen aristocrat" caught the eye of Li Shufu, and Geely's Xingji Times acquired 79.09% of Meizu's shares, subsequently merging into Xingji Meizu Group.

As a core executive of the Geely system, Shen Ziyu is the first leader of the Xingji Meizu Group. During his tenure, Xingji Meizu clearly proposed to transform from a traditional smartphone manufacturer into a cross-industry integrated full-stack smart terminal platform, beginning to venture into the automotive industry, hoping to organically integrate technologies and products from different fields such as smartphones, XR, and smart cars In March 2023, Shen Ziyu proposed at the first strategic communication meeting after the establishment of the group that Meizu aims to return to the top five in the national mid-to-high-end smartphone market within three years, while setting the product strategy of "not making low-end phones, focusing on mid-to-high-end quality products."

Many people expect "to benefit from the shade of a large tree," believing that Meizu can rely on Geely's strong financial backing to achieve brilliance again.

However, for industrial capital like Geely, the core motivation for acquiring Meizu is not really to compete in the smartphone red ocean, but to make up for the shortcomings in the intelligent transformation of the automotive sector.

Geely values Meizu's customization capabilities for UI and systems, and the successful application of Flyme Auto in several Geely models indeed proves the value of this ecological integration.

Li Shufu had also attempted to take Meizu public, but as the smartphone business continued to incur losses, could not achieve self-sufficiency, and remained in the "Others" category in market share statistics for years, Li Shufu's attitude has undergone subtle changes, and the prospect of Meizu going public has since gone quiet.

A former Meizu employee close to the core management team told Wall Street Insights that under the current economic situation, Geely does not want to provide more financial support to Meizu, which undoubtedly further exacerbates Meizu's financial pressure.

For Meizu, the smartphone business is shifting from a "core entry point" to a "heavy burden." Originally hoping to achieve a 1+1 greater than 2 effect through smartphones + cars, the reality is that the smartphone business is weak and cannot provide substantial support for car sales, and even Meizu-branded cars have been "aborted" due to Geely's internal brand contraction.

Against this backdrop, the enthusiasm for continuing to inject large amounts of capital into the smartphone business is waning.

Su Jing's departure and Huang Zhipan's return, while seen as a return to traditional genes, may also indicate that the company is undergoing final asset liquidation and business transformation.

Another interesting point is that according to updated business information from Qichacha, in January this year, Hubei Xingji Meizu Technology Co., Ltd. (i.e., Xingji Meizu) underwent a change in senior management registration, with Shen Ziyu, who had long stepped down as chairman and CEO of Meizu, becoming the chairman.

For shareholders pursuing investment returns, cutting off inefficient hardware R&D businesses and concentrating resources on more imaginative AI ecosystems and intelligent cockpits is the most logical business decision.

At this time, Meizu's abandonment of the smartphone hardware business may be a form of loss-limiting relief, losing an inefficient terminal with low annual shipments and no bargaining power, while gaining full focus on core system algorithms and emerging tracks like AI glasses.

An analyst in the consumer electronics industry from a brokerage firm told Wall Street Insights that Geely Group does not need a money-losing smartphone brand; it needs a system developer that can quickly adapt to global models and set industry benchmarks.

Management Continues to Shake

Insufficient funds are just one aspect; another important reason for a company's decline is related to the turmoil within the core team.

In the past five years, Meizu has experienced a rare high-level reshuffle, changing four CEOs in five years From the time Huang Zhang handed over the reins to his younger brother Huang Zhipan in 2021, to the acquisition by Geely and the leadership of Shen Ziyu, followed by the appointment of Su Jing with a financial background, and finally the return of Huang Zhipan, this revolving door of personnel changes has kept Meizu's established strategy in a fragmented state.

As the wave of AI large models surged, on February 18, 2024, Meizu became one of the first smartphone manufacturers to announce the cessation of traditional smartphone development. According to Meizu's strategy at the time, it aimed to fully invest in "Tomorrow's Devices" (AI For New Generations), with the first new AI terminal product set to be officially released within 2024.

At that time, Shen Ziyu, then Chairman and CEO of Xingji Meizu Group, believed that Meizu needed to use its limited resources and time to accomplish something greater.

According to the plan, Meizu would completely revamp its mobile operating system, conducting system updates to build the foundational capabilities of an operating system for the AI era; by 2026, it aimed to achieve the number one market share for AI devices in China and fully construct its product ecosystem.

The slogan was loud, and Meizu conveyed a strong confidence to the outside world about its rebirth.

About ten days after the "ALL in AI" strategy was announced, Meizu held a launch event for its new smartphone, Meizu 21 PRO, defining it as a Tomorrow's Device newly created for the AI era.

On that day, former Meizu executive Li Nan, as a senior Meizu fan, became the main speaker at the event, and Yang Yan, the soul of Meizu's mobile operating system Flyme, also made a rare return to discuss some AI features of Flyme.

Bringing back a group of veterans clearly signaled Meizu's positive intention to rebuild an elite team and start anew.

On February 25, as rumors of Meizu's smartphone business suspension grew rampant, Li Nan also posted on Weibo revealing part of the story from back then.

He pointed out: "More than two years ago, I had a secret plan about how to revitalize Meizu. However, it was never fully executed, mainly because the first step was a very aggressive layoff—keeping only a few hundred people. I knew that a leadership team without profound lessons from the 2C market competition would not execute such an aggressive plan. But I also knew this was the only correct path to save the brand."

Li Nan and others did not return to Meizu, and even more unexpectedly, less than three months after the launch of Meizu 21 PRO, Su Jing, who had led the acquisition of Meizu during the Xingji era, was promoted to CEO of the company, while Shen Ziyu left.

At that time, Xingji Meizu Group was still actively preparing for its IPO in Hong Kong, with an optimistic internal outlook for achieving the listing in 2024.

During Su Jing's tenure, former XPeng executive Liao Qinghong also joined Meizu as Chief Operating Officer and was pushed to the forefront. According to the new plan, Meizu aimed to create an ecosystem centered around Flyme AIOS, with three product categories—smartphones, smart glasses, and smart cars—developing together, and launched the cost-effective Lucky series smartphones and StarV series smart glasses At a communication meeting in March 2025, Liao Qinghong told Wall Street News that for the past six months, Xingji Meizu has been working hard on "3+1", using AI as the foundation to build the company along the lines of product innovation, globalization, and ecosystem development. In this process, they have also gained clearer insights. In terms of specific product innovation, they will explore AI smartphones and smart glasses in the future.

However, in terms of positioning, during this stage, Meizu phones will primarily target the mid-to-low-end market, which is completely different from the mid-to-high-end strategy previously proposed by Shen Ziyu.

Just when the outside world thought Meizu was on the right track, news suddenly broke two months later that Su Jing had resigned as CEO. By July, Huang Zhipan's Weibo certification changed to CEO of Xingji Meizu Group, further confirming the personnel changes.

An insider close to Meizu revealed to Wall Street News that Su Jing's resignation was voluntary, likely due to excessive internal pressure and insufficient support from Geely, leading to the belief that it would be very difficult for Meizu to perform well in the future.

After Su Jing's departure, several executives, including Liao Qinghong and former Xingji Meizu Vice President Zeng Yang, have also left one after another, which has become an important signal of the subsequent development difficulties faced by Meizu's mobile phone business.

The loss of core talent has led to slow updates of Meizu's proud Flyme system, and even the former key figure Yang Yan chose to sever ties with the company, publicly expressing differences on Weibo in August and September last year, claiming to make Meizu 22 unsellable. This undoubtedly reflects the complex entanglement of interests within Meizu, further accelerating the brand's decline.

Deeply Trapped in the Spiral of Competition

"If you don't have elite talent and the courage to act, then there's no point in discussing any strategic direction. A large, chaotic organization with misaligned thoughts cannot break through. Today, plaud sales have exceeded one million, meta sales are about to exceed ten million, while Meizu has gone silent, and there's nothing to regret. When the team no longer has combat effectiveness, fans hoping for a comeback will inevitably be in vain."

Li Nan's remarks on February 25 seem to add a footnote to the end of Meizu's mobile phone saga.

The increasingly fierce competition in the mobile phone industry may also be a core factor in Meizu's decision to make drastic cuts.

The smartphone market has entered a stage of significant industry concentration and extreme competition.

IDC reports indicate that in 2025, China's smartphone market shipment volume is expected to be about 285 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 0.6%. At the beginning of the year, the "national subsidy" combined with the Spring Festival sales peak significantly boosted market growth, but this momentum was short-lived. In the second half of the year, as some market demand was released in advance, many regions exhausted their "national subsidy" funds early, and factors such as rising costs continued to impact the market, which maintained a year-on-year decline.

Meanwhile, according to IDC data, the five major leading manufacturers—Huawei, Apple, Vivo, Xiaomi, and OPPO—have captured nearly 80% of the market share, leaving very little room for "Others" to survive. In such a competitive landscape, Meizu is struggling.

The Matthew effect means that without a large shipment volume to support supply chain costs and R&D investment, small and medium-sized manufacturers, no matter how much they promote "experience over specifications," will find it very difficult to survive in this battle for existence Some industry insiders believe that the significant increase in memory prices, influenced by the global contraction of storage chip production capacity and the surge in demand for AI servers, may be the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

A source from the consumer electronics supply chain revealed that the procurement cost of smartphone storage chips has risen by more than 80% compared to the same period last year, with no signs of slowing down.

According to a report by market research firm Counterpoint Research, the soaring prices of DRAM (memory) have caused the Bill of Materials (BoM) costs for low-end, mid-range, and high-end smartphones to increase by approximately 25%, 15%, and 10%, respectively. It is expected that the average cost impact will remain between 10% and 15% until the second quarter of 2026.

Yang Wang, a senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, pointed out that in the lower price segment, there is limited room for smartphone price increases. If costs cannot be fully passed on, OEMs may adjust their product strategies. Recently, the market has observed a reduction in shipments of some low SKU models.

Wall Street Journal also learned from the supply chain that in response to rising cost pressures, several leading smartphone brands plan to initiate a new round of product price adjustments in early March. This will be the largest and most significant collective price adjustment in the smartphone industry in the past five years.

At the same time, institutions such as Counterpoint Research and IDC have generally lowered their forecasts for global and Chinese smartphone market shipments in 2026, which undoubtedly further exacerbates the operational pressure on manufacturers.

In the fast-paced technological development, many smartphone brands have fallen behind or exited the market, including overseas brands like Nokia, BlackBerry, Ericsson, LG, Siemens, and Sharp, as well as domestic brands like Meitu, Xiaxin, Gionee, Smartisan, and LeEco.

At the beginning of 2026, during ASUS's year-end party, ASUS Group Chairman Jonney Shih also announced that the ASUS Zenfone and ROG Phone dual brands will stop launching new models from 2026 onwards, marking the end of nearly 23 years of smartphone journey for this PC giant.

In the brutal elimination competition, it is becoming increasingly difficult for small and medium-sized smartphone manufacturers to survive. Meizu is not the first to exit, nor will it be the last.

For the smartphone industry, Meizu's potential exit reflects the bottleneck of hardware innovation as a whole.

The appeal of smartphones as core terminals is being flattened by excessive competition, and for investors and manufacturers, the consensus has become to cut off inefficient businesses.

Although this choice may cause brands to disappear from the hardware landscape, from a business perspective, it is a wise move to withdraw limited R&D resources from the fiercely competitive red ocean and invest them in the next generation of interactive terminals (such as AI glasses).

In this process, what is lost is an obsession of an era, while what is gained may be a ticket to the future intelligent ecosystem.

Letting go of the obsession with smartphones and focusing on new directions may not be a rebirth for Meizu today.

The market is cruel; it does not give too many retake opportunities to those who fall behind. However, for companies that dare to cut losses and start anew in the right direction, there is still a place for them in the future Risk Warning and Disclaimer

The market has risks, and investment should be cautious. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account the specific investment goals, financial situation, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article are suitable for their specific circumstances. Investment based on this is at one's own risk