Breaking news today! Industry sources in China are reporting that Taiwan’s Mediatek have invested in smartphone maker Meizu.
Last year Meizu broke from the norm with the release of the Meizu MX4, their first smartphone to launch running a Mediatek chip in place of a Samsung processor. It wasn’t just any chip either as Meizu were the first company to get their hands on the MT6595.
Gizchina News of the week
Since the MX4 we have also witnessed the launch of the Meizu M1 note with MT6752 chip and Meizu M1 with MT6732 firmly solidifying the cooperation between the two companies so what’s next?
Industry analysts today have reported that Mediatek have actually invested in Meizu, although the number of shares acquired and the amount of money the deal is worth have not been announced.
The news comes after Xiaomi officially broke ties with MTK in favour of Qualcomm. What this means for future the future between Meizu and Samsung remains unclear.
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Quacomm has invested over the years in lots of phone makers. In Qualcomm’s case i am not sure regulators should allow it since it’s clearly an anti-competitive move and given their share that’s problematic.
So it’s not an unprecedented move.
Intel is doing a similar thing in glasses ,they are buying their design wins with investments in startups that are trying to kickstart that segment.
Microsoft started out with an investment in Nokia before eventually purchasing them outright.
…and let’s not forget that Alibaba dropped $US 590 Million into Meizu in February this year as well. I suspect Alibaba / Meizu / Mediatek are joining forces to take on Xiaomi and their “ecosystem”. Will be interesting to see how this plays out – does Alibaba see itself as the APPLE of the east?
Xiaomi already owns the crown Apple of the East.
Why not? Great investment. The move would further solidify Meizu’s position as one of the future Big 6 (Meizu, Xiaomi, Huawei, ZTE, Coolpad, Lenovo) and give MediaTek a design-forward platform to showcase their latest chips. Absolutely nuts how Meizu has reimagined itself in just a couple of years.
If we are going to see better prices then why not?
I like it for two reasons:
1. Meizu gets access to the latest and greatest SoC’s at a lower price which then get passed onto the consumer. Meizu has been very good with passing savings on to the consumer.
2. Mediatek get’s real life handsets to try out their new and experimental SoC’s in, instead of the usual developer builds they use.
I’ve never been a fan of Meizu before the M1 due to their prices.
I liked how they adjusted themselves to the market though. I’m sure we will all benefit from this partnership
I’ve always felt like Meizu has been good with their prices based on the specs of their phones. I was never a fan until I actually used the MX4, I still have yet to actually own one but have used Flyme on a few devices and really like it.
Mx5 helio 20 and mx5 pro exynos….
I doubt mediatek would be OK with Meizu making a pro version of their phones with a exynos SoC.
They are investing money on high end SoC and that scenario would kill their image as a high end manufacturer.
I thought the Ali group bought the majority stake in Meizu last year?
Meizu make great phones, but OS needs some work, at least it doesn`t eat RAM like TouchWIZ or MIUI.
I actually love Flyme, it takes some getting used to the layout and controls but once you do it is a great OS.
We are seeing 3gb and 4gb phones this year, even if 1 is sucked by the OS it shouldn’t be a big deal.
today finally sold my MX4, like a phone it’s okay, but Flyme is a bullshit