Alibaba Bets $590 Million On Becoming Smartphone Player

An anonymous reader was one of many to note that Alibaba has bought a $590 million minority stake in Chinese smartphone manufacturer Meizu. "China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is taking a $590 million stake in an obscure domestic smartphone maker as the e-commerce giant tests ways to expand its mobile operating system in a shrinking, cut-throat handset market. Extending a previously muted push into hardware, Alibaba said on Monday it will buy an unspecified minority stake in smartphone maker Meizu Technology Co. Dwarfed by rivals like Xiaomi Inc, privately owned Meizu's slice of China's smartphone market is estimated by analysts at below 2 percent. The deal, unlike U.S. rival Amazon.com Inc's foray into smartphones with its own-brand Fire Phone, is designed to help Alibaba push its mobile operating system within China through Meizu's handsets. In return, Zhuhai, Guangdong-based Meizu will get access to Alibaba's e-commerce sales channels and other resources, the companies said in a joint statement."

Shazam!

[turkeydance]

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

Re:

[gtall]

Well gollllllly, Sargent, I didn't mean to, but they asked real nice.

Yeah!

[Greyfox]

You can already get the highest quality iPlones on alibaba. They look like an iPhone, but they're not. They're probably made by the same guys and the same high-quality tears of Chinese children, though!

Meizu isn't obscure

[Anonymous Coward]

Meizu isn't considered an "obscure domestic smartphone maker" neither in China nor by anyone buying chinese android phones.

Re:

[HornWumpus]

Is Dell suing them for stealing their business model?

Alibaba

[Anonymous Coward]

What is interesting about Alibaba is the opportunities to buy directly from the manufacturers by the common man. If you look on their website you see shirts that normally retail for $70-$80 selling for $8 with FREE shipping. Sure, you can call them "fakes", but they are made in the same factory by the same workers as the "real ones". Who do you think is manufacturing the "real" goods? Santas' Elves?

Now we know how much we are getting screwed paying 1000% markups.

Re:

[Wootery]

you can call them "fakes", but they are made in the same factory by the same workers as the "real ones"

But are they the same device?

A single factory and workforce might produce any number of different products.

Re:

[ArcadeMan]

Look at this [www.ebay.ca] on eBay.

Those are sold listings with free shipping.

In Canada I couldn't even get a stamp for a postcard or letter at that price.

Re:

[Lumpy]

As well as the opportunities to scam the hell out of people. I have more problems on AliBaba than ebay with scammers.

They dont have any system in place to filter out the criminals, so it's a giant freaking mess.

Re:

[gtall]

Yes, but this is Chinese manufacturing we're talking about with no American company worried about their image and quality control. I very much doubt any Chinese knockoff is going to be as good, they'll cut corners anyway they can.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

What is interesting about Alibaba is the opportunities to buy directly from the manufacturers by the common man. If you look on their website you see shirts that normally retail for $70-$80 selling for $8 with FREE shipping. Sure, you can call them "fakes", but they are made in the same factory by the same workers as the "real ones". Who do you think is manufacturing the "real" goods? Santas' Elves?

Now we know how much we are getting screwed paying 1000% markups.

Only if you don't know how Chinese manufactur

Not a hype

[hooiberg]

It is now safe to say that the smartphone is more than just a hype, now. As they become bigger, the legal duet between Samsung and Apple will become a threesome. I wonder how they will keep up there.

Obscure...

[frinkster]

taking a $590 million stake in an obscure

I wouldn't mind being an "obscure" company if $590 million didn't buy the whole thing.

well...

[Mirar]

...it will have 500,000Ah battery, 19200x10800 resolution with 20,000 lumen screen brightness, 64TB RAM and gold plated.

As everything else on Alibaba.

Re:

[Lumpy]

And it will have happy fun. Always with the happy fun good!

Re:

[Racemaniac]

and most importantly: free shipping.

Meizu MX4

[hsa]

One of the first Ubuntu phones. It did make it to the front page of slashdot, but apparently the editors have hard time remembering what they wrote..

The next Radio Shack?

[Gim Tom]

Guess they didn't notice what happened to Radio Shack after they morphed into a cell phone store.

Alibaba has ALWAYS sold cell phones

[voss]

Just not their own brand.

They used to make mp3 players

[quantaman]

A few years back I needed a compact Linux compatible mp3/ogg player and I bought one of their M3 music cards.

It was actually a decent little player, I probably would have bought a second after it died but they discontinued them so I switched to a SanDisk clip.

Still they were definitely trying to emulate the Apple aesthetic even back then, I was kinda surprised they weren't bigger.

Yeah precisely

[aliquis]

Yeah, maybe comparing them to Rio is exaggerating but back in the late mp3-/media player days they was up there with Cowon/iAudio, iRiver and Sansa Clip as one of the finest you could get.

And then they decided to make an iPhone clone next.

I assume we're many outside of China who know who they are (and that there phones haven't been as successful, but I assume money and volumes can help with that.)