Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) has agreed to invest US$590 million in smartphone maker Meizu Technology Co (魅族), boosting the e-commerce company’s push to get its mobile operating system on millions of handsets in China.
Alibaba is set to hold a minority stake in Meizu and integrate the smartphone’s hardware with Alibaba’s YunOS (阿里雲OS) software, Alibaba said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Meizu, which last year released the MX4 and Meizu Blue Charm smartphones, did not rank among China’s top five smartphone manufacturers as of the September quarter, according to researcher Canalys.
Alibaba is counting on YunOS to help it grow beyond selling clothes and gadgets into the entertainment and healthcare fields as it tries to capture a greater share of China’s 557 million smartphone users. With a market value of US$211 billion, Alibaba has struggled to expand the software’s reach in China, where more than nine out of 10 mobile devices run Google Inc’s Android platform.
“Alibaba wants to promote its operating system and fight for mobile access points,” RHB Research Institute Sdn Bhd Hong Kong-based analyst Li Yujie said by telephone. “Meizu is one of the better homegrown mobile-phone makers in China, so it makes sense for Alibaba to work with them.”
Alibaba vice chairman Joseph Tsai (蔡崇信) said in November last year that the company’s long-term goal was to get YunOS on tens of millions of smartphones. That aim dovetails with the Chinese government’s goals of reducing dependence on Android and promoting national technology champions to rival US giants Google and Apple Inc.
“The investment in Meizu represents a significant expansion of the Alibaba Group ecosystem and an important step in our overall mobile strategy,” Alibaba chief technology officer Wang Jian (王堅) said in the statement.
The size of Alibaba’s share of the company was not disclosed.
Zhuhai-based Meizu sold 1.5 million smartphones last month, Meizu chairman Jack Wong (黃章) said on a Chinese microblogging site on Thursday last week.
“This strategic collaboration with Alibaba Group will enable Meizu to further develop our smartphone business and our smart devices ecosystem,” Meizu chief executive officer Yongxiang Bai (白永祥) said.
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