Chinese Consumer Electronics Manufacturer Meizu to Build 1,000 Stores within Three Years

Meizu, a Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer, announced on December 23 that it will build 1,000 stores in the next three years, covering not only mobile phones and vehicles, but also AR glasses, tablets, watches and smart home appliances.

This is Meizu’s the first large-scale offline activity since the release of its Meizu 18 in 2021. The company showed a Hi-Fi player named M3 Pro, which will be officially released in the spring of 2023. The player’s design strategy is similar to that of the M3, and has no breakpoints nor exposed screws.

The Hi-Fi player named M3 Pro (Source: Meizu)

For the Hi-Fi player, Meizu’s senior acoustic development team and senior decoding chip engineers have customized a more professional decoding chip that adopts a high-performance True 1-Bit decoding scheme, which can produce a more natural sound than the traditional PCM scheme.

Meizu’s 20 series flagship mobile phones will also be released in the spring of 2023. The device has now entered its testing stage before mass production begins. Meizu’s stores will display various products, including the company’s EV models co-developed with other manufacturers.

Meizu, founded 19 years ago, is busy looking for new growth pillars. In June this year, Xingji Technology, which is controlled by Eric Li, chairman of Geely, announced that it had acquired 79.09% equity of Meizu and obtained its control rights. On the basis of maintaining brand independence, both parties plan to cover different consumer electronics segments, including mobile phones, automobiles and others.

In October, Meizu announced the FlymeAuto vehicle system to focus on intelligent consoles, intelligent travel and other fields. Geely’s vehicle brand Lynk & Co. will be the first to use the system. In the future, models equipped with the system will most likely appear in Meizu’s stores.

SEE ALSO: Geely Chairman-Backed Smartphone Brand Meizu Unveiled “FlymeAuto” Vehicle System

At its peak, Meizu had more than 2,000 stores nationwide. With the narrowing of its mobile phone market share, a number of Meizu stores in high-end business districts or lower-tier cities closed. In the future, Meizu will focus on developing vehicle systems and other supporting systems for Geely. In response to the rumor that Meizu will build automobiles by itself, Victor Yang, senior vice president of Geely, said in October that Meizu would not be involved in manufacturing vehicles, but would only provide services for car companies. With Huawei and Xiaomi joining the vehicle field, the topic of mobile phone manufacturers selling automobiles is no longer new. In this new battlefield, Meizu will face competition from many angles.