Meizu and Xiaomi lack Lei Jun

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Today, Meizu's official website announced that the price of MX4 Pro will be reduced from 2499 yuan to 2199 yuan. I had expected this. When MX4 Pro was first released, I was also shocked by its powerful hardware configuration and price. Meizu really sold MX4 Pro to the highest standards at the press conference. Its Hifi-level sound quality, fingerprint recognition and 2K screen are all plus points for MX4 Pro. After MX4 Pro was launched, it was in a state of being priced but not sold. Users could not buy MX4 Pro at the official price of 2499. An insider revealed that this was because Meizu dealers were hoarding MX4 Pro and did not sell it at Meizu's official unified price, creating the illusion of hot market demand.

Many people say that Meizu is learning from Xiaomi and trying to catch up with Xiaomi, but why are the premium prices of Xiaomi phones and the F code that has been used so many times accepted by users and scalpers? They generally accept that Xiaomi phones are priced above the official price in the second-hand market, but cannot accept the brand premium of Meizu phones. From the perspective of the attitude of making mobile phones, I really think that Meizu's attitude of making mobile phones is far more sincere than Lei Jun's, but all this stopped at Meizu's "rebirth" in 2014.

Meizu in Transformation

2014 was a year of transformation for Meizu. Judging from its past market sales, Meizu's transformation was undoubtedly successful. The strategy of keeping a close eye on Xiaomi has more and more of the flavor of Samsung's fight against Apple. Meizu machines are repeatedly compared with Xiaomi, and they compete with Xiaomi in online marketing, which misleads people into thinking that Meizu is Xiaomi's biggest competitor. The fierce battle between Meizu and Xiaomi caused by the MX4 1799 incident last year means that Meizu has begun to counterattack Xiaomi.

Meizu put aside the dignity it had insisted on before and successfully launched MX4, MX4 Pro and Meizu Blue Note last year. Meizu learned from Xiaomi's previous problems of going back on its word and false boasting, which were one of the reasons for Meizu's successful transformation. These problems were incredible to Meizu, which used to focus on products. The three new phones released by Meizu last year, MX4, MX4 Pro and Meizu Blue Note, are undoubtedly excellent among similar and priced phones. Unfortunately, when these products first came out, it was difficult to buy these phones at the official price. Meizu has also mastered the game of having a price but no market. The trick that Meizu once disgusted Xiaomi is now repeating itself on Meizu.

Meizu is increasingly resembling the image of Xiaomi when it was first established in 2011. Meizu has become the next Xiaomi, but unfortunately, Meizu seems to have woken up a little too late. The competition in the mobile phone market has stabilized. Xiaomi's current valuation of $45 billion and its position in the top five in the world have made Xiaomi feel like it is competing for the mobile phone championship. Meizu and Xiaomi are no longer competitors of the same level. Perhaps Meizu has never been a competitor of the same level as Xiaomi. The reason why Meizu learned a series of tactics from Xiaomi this year is just to survive in the increasingly fierce mobile phone circle. Meizu is, after all, just a mobile phone brand. Lei Jun and Huang Zhang had already decided the winner in their judgment of the future pattern a few years ago. Meizu's series of changes this year may be forced.

Can Meizu return to 2499?

Before MX4, Meizu phones had a certain influence in the mid-range market of around 2,500 yuan. Meizu's attitude towards making phones and the quality of Meizu phones were absolutely worthy of the price of Meizu phones. Although Meizu's sales volume was far less than Xiaomi's, Meizu still conquered a large number of Meizu fans with its uncompromising and unfollowing attitude. Mobile phone manufacturers began to sell feelings, not from Hammer, but from Meizu Huang Zhang. J·Wang, created by Meizu, symbolized the Steve Jobs in the minds of Meizu fans.

But all this has changed dramatically since the release of MX4. Meizu's previous attitude of conscientiously making products is gone forever. The unexpected price of MX4 is 1799, which has set off a boom in the domestic mobile phone market in the second half of 2014. Compared with the past, the number of pre-orders and sales of Meizu MX4 has undergone a complete transformation. It has become the best-selling mobile phone in Meizu's history. But starting from MX4, you can clearly see that Meizu has compromised in making products. The quality of MX4 is far inferior to that of MX3. The call quality left over from Meizu's history has not been improved. The Flyme system often encounters the problem of freezing for no reason, which annoys users. Although you spend 1799 to buy a machine with superior performance, the user experience it brings is really in line with the price of 1799 yuan, and it is really worth that much money.

If MX4 was Meizu's offensive weapon last year, then MX4 Pro is undoubtedly the defensive weapon to protect the Meizu brand. Its performance and features can definitely give you a sense of value for money even at 2499 yuan. However, such a machine that defends the Meizu brand has now been officially announced by Meizu to be reduced in price to 2199 yuan. From this price reduction behavior of Meizu, you can also guess that the sales of MX4 Pro may not be as "good" as Meizu imagined.

Can Meizu return to the status of 2499? In my opinion, it is possible. The biggest failure of MX4 Pro is that it is not sufficiently differentiated from MX4 in terms of product positioning. In terms of appearance and craftsmanship design, the two are almost the same. The shortcomings of MX4 in appearance are also inherited in MX4 Pro. MX4 Pro has only upgraded the hardware and created a few selling points to attract users, which is far from enough in my opinion. Of course, the most complained thing is that MX4 Pro has lost the essence of the entire MX series, the small dot. In order to achieve the effect of fingerprint recognition, it uses Samsung's square Home button instead, which makes old Meizu fans complain.

Meizu and Xiaomi lack Lei Jun

Meizu introduced Alibaba's investment and tried to become the next Xiaomi, but in the eyes of those who are interested, they all know that there can only be one Xiaomi. If Xiaomi was not in charge of Lei Jun, it would definitely be mediocre. Lei Jun may not be as good as Huang Zhang in making mobile phone products, but in terms of strategic layout and Internet changes, Lei Jun really beat Huang Zhang to pieces. The gap between Meizu and Xiaomi is the gap between Huang Zhang's perspective and Lei Jun's vision. You can also understand it as the gap between Huang Zhang's ambition and Lei Jun's ambition.

Lei Jun's seven-word formula that once swept the Internet, "focus, extreme, and fast," made him dare not relax the development speed of Xiaomi. He quietly used his influence to build a complete Xiaomi ecosystem. When Xiaomi was just established, Lei Jun did not define Xiaomi as a mobile phone company. Lei Jun defined Xiaomi as a company like Amazon, which was really incomprehensible to ordinary people at the time. But later, Xiaomi's series of market development practices are verifying his original remarks.

The difference between excellent entrepreneurs and ordinary entrepreneurs is that: "Excellent entrepreneurs can always see perspectives that ordinary people cannot see, and even some things that ordinary people think are abnormal. Excellent entrepreneurs can always complete the perspective that ordinary people cannot see according to their own expectations. When looking at the same thing, excellent entrepreneurs can always jump from point A to point C."

Xiaomi has undoubtedly fulfilled this statement. Xiaomi started with the social application "Mi Chat", but later developed "MIUI". As a result, the "Xiaomi mobile phone" became famous and the "Redmi mobile phone" made money. This leap of thought is really amazing. The cost-effectiveness of Xiaomi mobile phones has made Xiaomi's brand well-known, but in terms of making money, Lei Jun used the cheaper Redmi mobile phone to make profits and really made a lot of money.