Geely-backed Meizu Applies for “Wujie Automobile” Trademark

Meizu, which was acquired by Geely, has made new moves in the automotive field. According to Tianyancha, a commercial information inquiry platform, Meizu recently applied for the registration of two trademarks for “Wujie Automobile”, both of which are internationally classified as a means of transportation. This move has once again triggered a discussion on whether Meizu wants to step foot into the automobile manufacturing industry.

Prior to this, Meizu had been recruiting within the automotive field on a large scale. Its official website currently shows that recruitment for automobile-related positions is mainly divided into two categories. First, automobile product technical positions, including vehicle system product managers, and intelligent console project managers, all of whom will be based in Wuhan, Hubei Province. Second, automobile business-related positions, including trainers, marketers, and sales planning promotors, and those positions will be stationed in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province.

Meizu confirmed that the company is indeed looking for talent in the automotive field. However, regarding the rumors that Meizu will build a car, Victor Yang, senior vice president of Geely, responded on social media, “This is a misreading. Meizu is not building a car, but only providing services for car companies.”

Meizu was one of the earliest smartphone manufacturers in China, but now its share in the market has shrunk substantially. After integration with Geely, Meizu began to exert its strength in the automotive field, going so far as to hang a publicity banner with the words “ALL in AUTO” in its Zhuhai headquarters. Vehicle systems have been an important fulcrum for Meizu to break into the automobile field. On October 27 last year, Meizu unveiled the FlymeAuto car system, which is the continuation of its Flyme mobile phone system in the intelligent console of the car.

Meizu will also participate in selling cars. At the end of 2022, it announced that it will build 1,000 stores over the next three years to display mobile phones and automobiles. In the future, models equipped with the FlymeAuto car system will most likely appear in Meizu’s stores.

In addition, Meizu has applied for a number of patents related to automobiles in recent years, focusing on the fields of intelligent consoles and automatic driving, such as judging whether the driver is tired from their posture, automatic takeover methods, in addition to systems that are based on driving vehicles, face recognition to open the trunk of the car and video communication between vehicle cameras.

SEE ALSO: Meizu’s Offline Flagship Store to Sell Vehicles

In fact, whether it is building a car system or participating in selling cars, Meizu’s entry into the automotive field is quite similar to Huawei, which also claims not to build cars. Huawei’s Smart Selection mode is its deepest way to participate in the automotive field. Huawei and Seres jointly released the AITO brand (one word difference from Meizu’s newly applied trademark in Chinese) at the end of 2021. The brand’s products are not only equipped with Huawei’s HarmonyOS and other technologies, but have also entered Huawei’s terminal sales channels. Throughout the whole of 2022, the cumulative delivery of AITO series models exceeded 75,000 units.