Two years after its launch, things aren’t all well for Lenovo’s internet-exclusive brand – ZUK Mobile. On a Weibo thread, well-known analyst Pan Jiutang has revealed the Chinese OEM is wrapping up the ZUK mobile division and will be incorporating the resources with its other brands such as Moto. An official announcement, though, is yet to arrive from Lenovo itself which will probably come in the coming weeks.
ZUK Mobile primarily grew to power with its attractive smartphone launches which offered (like every other phone nowadays) high-end specifications at an affordable price tag. The brand, in its heydays, launched a total of five devices in China, some of which made their way into neighboring countries including India. Their Z series did quite well in various markets like India where it has been heavily discounted for the past few weeks on online channels. But it’s important to note that they launched the phones under Lenovo branding and not ZUK. Incidentally, a couple of months ago, they did launch the ZUK Edge which featured all the right ingredients for taking on the big guns.
Now, given its popularity, I’m sure there will be severe consequences to this decision in terms of customer service and more importantly, software updates. Most of the ZUK phones are yet to receive any sort of updates since their release which will agitate a lot of users. The news of the brand being discontinued will only make situations worse.
According to Lenovo VP, Alex Chen Yu, the only ZUK product the company will be retaining is the custom software called ZUI. It will be integrated with upcoming Lenovo phones. This move falls in accordance with Lenovo’s plans to consolidate each and every one of its brands under the Lenovo Moto umbrella but the termination of ZUK Mobile still comes as a surprise. Although, they have remained oddly quiet about ZUK in the past couple of months even with all those deals and discounts flowing in the news.