Official: auto giant Geely buys Meizu

This happened. January rumors about the intention of the Chinese auto giant Geely to acquire Meizu turned out to be

true.As follows from today's statement by China's antitrust regulator, Geely has agreed to buy Meizu's stake from its two largest shareholders: Huang Xiuzhang and Taobao China (owning 49.08% and 27.23% of Meizu shares, respectively). As a result of the transaction, the first will retain only 9.79%, and the second will completely withdraw from Meizu shares, while Geely will get 79.09% - a controlling stake giving sole control.

In September last year, Geely announcedthe intention to enter the smartphone market by 2023, which now seems quite possible, taking into account the experience and developments of Meizu. According to an informant at Digital Chat Station, the Meizu 19 project remained untouched following the deal. Earlier, schemes of the likely design of Meizu 19 appeared on the Web with a reference to the Geely logo. Meizu itself, recall, was founded in 2003 and even managed to be among the leading smartphone brands in China. In recent years, the company's business has been gradually fading away, and its market share has flowed to Xiaomi, OPPO and Vivo.

© Vladimir Kovalev.

Sourced from reuters.com | weibo.com