As a phone brand, to say that Meizu hasn’t been making waves would probably be an understatement. Last we heard of the brand was that it was being acquired by Geely to kickstart the latter’s phone business. More recently, we hear that the former is quitting the phone business almost entirely, to focus on the trendier AI market instead.
In a video posted on the Meizu Weibo account, Shen Ziyu, chairman and CEO of the Xingji Meizu Group, explained the reason behind Meizu quitting the smartphone market by comparing it to the PC market. As part of the comparison, he claims that users are holding on to their phones for 51 months on average before changing, and that consumers are going for what’s enough for their use, rather than aiming for the latest and greatest. Adding on to that is the claim that new phones are more about incremental upgrades, like getting more memory and faster charging.
Shen then says that the move is for the company to aim for something bigger. He goes on to point out the explosive growth of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as well as Google and Microsoft’s aggressive push in the field, before claiming that “AI is the future”.
In lieu of phones, Shen says that Meizu will instead work on what is called Flyme OS. That being said, the company later revealed a roadmap involving AI devices, and while it’s not revealed what form factor these will come in, the company is not completely quitting the hardware market.
(Source: Weibo)
