We got the chance to pick the brain of one of Meizu’s VP’s this past week while we were in Beijing for their Go Pro event where they announced the Meizu Pro 5. With Google looking to come back to China, even in a small way, and with the Moto 360 launching in China this week and Elephone launching an Android Wear smartwatch over there soon, we had to ask. If Meizu had any plans to launch an Android Wear smartwatch. Meizu’s VP, Li Nan stated that they currently don’t have any cooperation with Google, in terms of Android Wear. But that could change. So basically, they aren’t working with Google for Android Wear right now, but don’t rule it out in the future.
For the most part, Meizu is working on smartphones and that’s it. While they have announced a few pairs of HiFi earbuds in the past year, and a router this past week. They aren’t venturing out into the tablet space or into smartwatches and fitness trackers just yet. Now when these markets begin to grow a bit more, they may change that stance. Before last fall, Meizu had basically been launching one phone a year. And last year they sold 5 million MX3’s. From last September through the end of the year, they introduced the MX4, MX4 Pro and M1 Note. Which has allowed them to grow over 400% year-over-year, and selling 2.89 million devices in August alone. So Meizu is making wise choices here and are not just looking to release everything, like a few other smartphone makers have done. But they are releasing phones that people want to buy, and their sales numbers speak to that.
A Meizu smartwatch would be pretty cool, powered by Google and Android Wear. But for Android Wear to be really useful in China, Google’s going to need to play nice with the government and get away from that firewall. Currently, an Android Wear smartwatch in China is almost useless. As every Google service is blocked. Google has been rumored to be making a re-entry into China soon though, with the Google Play store. So we’ll see how that goes.