Dive Brief:

• Alibaba Group has bought a minority stake in Chinese smartphone manufacturer Meizu Technology Co. for $590 million. 
• The Chinese e-commerce juggernaut hopes to expand use of its mobile operating system, YunOS, within China through Meizu handsets. 
• Meizu presently holds only 2% of China’s smartphone market, trailing domestic and international companies such as Xiaomi, Huawei, Lenovo, Apple, and Samsung.

Dive Insight:

E-commerce giant Alibaba seems determined to expand use of its mobile operating system in its native China, similar to what Google has been able to do with Android. Its $590 million investment in Meizu, which holds only an estimated 2% share of the country’s massive smartphone market, is seen as a costly price of entry.

Domestic smartphone manufacturers Xiaomi, Huawei Technologies, and Lenovo Group and multinationals such as Apple and Samsung hold almost 60% of the market running other systems. While Meizu's flagship handset already runs YunOS, any push behind the Alibaba operating system is an uphill battle.