The AI wave has brought about a butterfly effect, "overturning" a 23-year-old mobile phone company and the old order. The "Meizu mobile phone shutdown" crisis that has been brewing for many years has come to an end today. "Smart Emergence" exclusively learned from insiders that Meizu recently announced a round of major adjustments.More than 50% of employees are about to leave, involving about 400 people.
These people have three places to go - among them, some willObtain "N+2" compensation.
The source said, "Most people will complete (the procedure) within this Friday";
Meizu’s “PANDAER” fashion brand team will be split, responsible for its own profits and losses;
Meizu’s AR glasses team was partially absorbed by the AR glasses company “Thunderbird Innovation”.
In fact, as early as February 27, in response to external rumors, Meizu issued an announcement titled "Twenty-three Years of Love, Reborn in the Name of Flyme", stating that it "decided to suspend the self-developed hardware project for new mobile phone products and is in the process of contacting third-party hardware partners."
According to "Smart Emergence", after adjustments, Meizu Mobile has only about 400 remaining employees.There will be two places to go in the future. One part will be integrated into Meizu’s flyme car and machine team, and the other part will turn toAIExploration of software direction.
The aforementioned people familiar with the matter said that the remaining employees are mainly concentrated in the Zhuhai team. They will no longer continue to use the Meizu brand, and the team members may also change the company's main body.
Regarding the above news, Meizu told "Smart Emergence": In the future, Meizu will use the Flyme open ecosystem as the core base to build a sound business closed loop for sustainable development. Reasonable changes in organizational personnel based on strategic transformation are normal phenomena in the development process of the industry. Please rest assured. In addition to suspending the self-research project of new domestic mobile phone hardware, the company has made steady progress in various businesses. The overseas mobile phone business, AI glasses smart hardware business and PANDAER trendy technology brand business are all operating normally.
Regarding the information about "Thunderbird Absorption", Meizu said that the information is untrue.
"Embracing the changes in the world and finding a path of healthy operation and continuous innovation have become the ultimate proposition of the company before and after the Spring Festival," Meizu said in the aforementioned announcement.
In fact, before the Spring Festival, Meizu employees had already felt the clues before the huge earthquake - for example, before the year, Meizu had dismissed outsourced employees, slowed down approvals, took holidays early and delayed the resumption of work. In this regard, most employees interpreted it as a signal that the mobile phone business was not going well.
In fact, according to "Smart Emergence", Meizu mobile phones once had room for improvement.
We learned from multiple people familiar with the matter that not long ago,AIThe company "Leap Star" once negotiated mergers and acquisitions with the Meizu mobile phone team.But this idea came to nothing since then. "It may be that Meizu's current brand value is not great," the source said.
The idea of acquisition is also in line with the strategy of "Step Star" itself.
Prior to this, "Leap Star" has clearly defined the strategic direction of "AI + terminal", promoting the implementation of large models in display devices such as automobiles and mobile phones, and has reached AI mobile terminal-side cooperation with more than 60% of domestic mobile phone manufacturers. Not long ago, "Step Star" also established a specialized AI hardware company "Zhi Yue Qianli".
"Smart Emergence" learned that despite giving up the acquisition of Meizu mobile phone team, it has "jumped thousands of miles in wisdom"It has absorbed some of the core assets of Meizu mobile phones, including code, mobile phone product documents, technical interface documents, code documents, visual animation documents, etc.
In fact, there are countless connections between Meizu mobile phones and "Step Stars", and the "tie" is auspiciousness.
Specifically, Geely has acquired nearly 80% of Meizu's shares a few years ago; at the same time, Geely is not only a car company deeply tied to the "Step Star" large model, but also an investor of Qianli Technology (formerly Lifan Technology) - and Yinqi is the chairman of these two companies (Step Star and Qianli Technology).
In other words, through internal integration within the Geely system, the future Meizu will be reduced to two parts - the reserve of mobile phones, which may be transformed into part of the future "step star" AI mobile phone; the "soft" Flyme operating system will be transformed into a part of the future Geely car and machine system; only the Meizu brand has become a thing of the past.
When it comes to Meizu, many employees and fans can't hide their regrets. "In memory of the partner who accompanied me in my youth" and "I feel very sorry", many Meizu users left messages in Chaohua.
In its previous announcement, Meizu Mobile pointed out that the essential reason for the strategic adjustment is the increase in memory prices - "The competition in the mobile phone market is beyond imagination..."Memory prices have skyrocketed, making commercialization of new mobile phone products impossible".
A report released by Counterpoint not long ago showed that in the first quarter of 2026, the price of DRAM increased by 50% month-on-month, and the price of NAND increased by more than 90% month-on-month.
The rise in memory prices has quietly changed the BOM cost structure of mobile phones:
The aforementioned report pointed out that the memory cost of low-end mobile phones (less than US$200) accounts for 43% of the total machine cost, an increase of 25% month-on-month;
The situation for mobile phones in the mid-to-high-end (>400 USD) price range is slightly better. It is expected that by the second quarter of this year, the proportion of memory in the total machine cost is expected to rise to 20% and 23% respectively.
The skyrocketing increase in memory has directly eliminated the living space of all mobile phone companies. Since the end of last year, China's mobile phone industry has not been peaceful.
In January this year, mobile phone manufacturer realme announced its return to the OPPO system due to memory price increases in order to seek collaborative operations and improve efficiency.
In March, a large number of mobile phone manufacturers launched the largest collective price adjustment in the past five years. OPPO, OnePlus, vivo, Xiaomi, and Honor models in different price ranges all had price increases ranging from 500 yuan, and some models even directly exited the thousand yuan price range.
The withdrawal of Meizu mobile phones is a microcosm of the butterfly effect encountered by mature industries in the AI wave.
However, this earthquake in the mobile phone industry is far from over. This may also be the beginning of the transition between the old and the new era.