A sad day for Chinese phone fans as another player in the market shows signs that it won’t be with us for much longer.
IUNI, the phone start-up owned by Gionee and launched at the same time as OnePlus, could be heading for bankruptcy according to new reports this weekend.
IUNI so far had launched a few rather surprising phones from the original U2 with 16 mega-pixel camera and full CNC alloy body, to the flagship U3 with 2K display and Snapdragon 810 (and costing only 1999 Yuan at launch!). Since those two phones though the company has been in trouble with the original CEO quitting, and a new CEO taking his place with a plan to create phone aimed at a generation of female phone users, a plan that doesn’t seem to have taken off quite as well as she hoped.
Gizchina News of the week
This weekends news of possible IUNI bankruptcy started with a posting on the IUNI forums stating that all staff from the company were leaving, this report has been confirmed by Chinese media but IUNI remain quiet on the matter.
IUNI can put some of the blame on unstable management, but the company also lacked a goal, had very poor marketing, and were competing with brands like Meizu, LeTV and OnePlus who all seemed to have larger budgets.It’s always sad to see another brand go the way of Dakele and iOcean before them but in this case it is hardly surprising.
Speaking to Gionee at MWC this year it seemed IUNI were considered a bit of an inside joke.
This is sad,the brand had way more promise than the flagship Gionee brand. It would’ve turned it what Oneplus turned into for oppo/bbk.
If they are losing money for Gionee that decision is a very easy one to make. As for the supposed U4 leak, it looks like a photoshoped U3.
lol the world doesn’t work like that. Almost any business will lose money at one time or another, that’s no reason to shut it down. Apple was losing money in 1997 when Jobs came back as CEO, Sony was losing money just last year,nobody would be standing if the world would work as you think.
lol, those companies aren’t even close to the same as IUNI. Neither of them are subsidiaries of other companies like IUNI is to Gionee. You have little clue how to real world works, you only know the mythical world in your head which often leaves the rest of us scratching our heads. Just like your pricing models for phones based on benchmarks that only makes sense to you.
In the real world companies divest themselves of subsidiaries all the time when they are losing money. Sony has closed the doors on several of their subsidiaries over the years because they were losing money. Some were sold to other companies, some were completely shut down. Happens in the Auto Industry as well, General Motors shut down Saturn, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and several other brands because of massive losses.