Meizu to sell cars in its phone showrooms

Meizu was founded in 2003 and was one of the first phone makers in China and it used to ship 10 million phones every year. Its recent performance dropped significantly down to just 1 million handsets a year and the company was taken over by another phone company - Xingji Shidai Technology. Nothing unusual until we realize that this company was founded by the chairman of Geely - Eric Li - who now owns over 79% of Meizu.

With new direction, Meizu is looking at rebranding and a product line refresh. With that in mind, the VP of Meizu took to Weibo asking his followers their opinions on the new Meizu stores design. The flagship stores will be significantly larger and according to the proposed designs, will have cars on display as well.

Meizu isn't planning to launch its own vehicle, at least in the near future. It is highly likely that it will display Geely vehicles at its showrooms instead and offer full sales service. The confirmation of those plans comes from recent job postings by Meizu - all automotive industry-related suggesting the company wants its own share of the car market.

To further corroborate this, the Meizu headquarters in Zhuhai have been dressed-up in giant posters reading “All in Auto” - the clues are obvious. Senior VP of Geely confirmed that Meizu in fact wasn’t going into manufacturing but that it will provide sales services to car companies.

Xingji, who now owns Meizu, was only founded in September last year with a goal to design and manufacture high-end smartphones. The company has global distribution plans and while it is developing its first product, it makes sense to bolster up revenues of Meizu by selling Geely cars. That way it all stays within the family, so to speak. Customers may end up buying a phone while looking for a car or buying a car while looking for a phone. Either way, Meizu makes money.

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