The incredible story of Gionee: The Chinese mobile maker that went bankrupt after its CEO lost $144 million gambling
July 3, 2024
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You may not have heard about it GioneeA Chinese mobile phone manufacturer founded in 2002 that has managed to become one of the main manufacturers in the country:
You may not have heard about it GioneeA Chinese mobile phone manufacturer founded in 2002 that has managed to become one of the main manufacturers in the country: Gionee mobile phones were not as popular as other Chinese manufacturers, but they managed to spread to different countries of the world and gain some popularity. . In fact, the company has participated in MWC several times.
The company’s 4.7% market share worldwide did not prevent Gionee from facing a serious economic situation. significant debts and we are losing money significantly. The company’s financial situation was so bad that Gionee filed for bankruptcy weeks after its CEO gambled tens of millions of dollars in a casino.
The company had been facing a very complicated economic situation for months.
Picture | Ivan Linares (Xataka Android)
The company continued to launch new mobile phones at the end of 2016. One of these mobile phones was the Gionee M2017, a high-end terminal that attracted attention at the time for its distinctive design and extremely high price. A few months later, the Chinese manufacturer announced that it would open a factory in India, so everything seemed to be going well.
It was learned that in 2018, the company faced serious financial problems that made it unable to even pay its suppliers, and the company’s CEO was dismissed at the end of the year. He lost $144 million on the bet at a casino, although Liu Lirong later claimed that he did not use company funds.
It was initially said that the amount lost was close to 10 billion yuan (about $1.4 billion at the exchange rate at the time), but the company’s CEO denied that the figure was too high and said it was quite close to one billion yuan (about $144 million at the time).
Certainly, The company’s financial problems began long before: Gionee had been losing money for months, which prevented it from paying its suppliers, resulting in the company’s bankruptcy, and in the middle, a Shenzhen court accepted Huaxing Bank’s bankruptcy liquidation request against Gionee.
Since that time I haven’t heard the name of the company much.Although everything seems to indicate that it is still in working order. In fact, at the beginning of 2022, we were talking about the company’s new mobile phone, the Gionee G13 Pro. At the time, it was stated that this situation could lead to the restructuring of the company, so Gionee seems to have managed to survive to some extent.
Not much is known about how Gionee managed to launch the phones, but the stakes are This is not the only debate regarding the company: At the end of 2020, the company was found guilty of infecting millions of devices with a Trojan horse.
Looks like the company has started setting up malware It was released on mobile phones in December 2018 and continued to do so until almost a year later in October 2019. Gionee has teamed up with a company known as Baice. infection of user devices and both companies would derive economic benefits of approximately 27.85 million yuan (about four million dollars) from this activity.
via | Economic Times, The Indian Express, Telecom, Jiemian, South China Morning Post, Ifeng, India Today and GSMArena
Cover image | Ivan Linares
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John Wilkes is a seasoned journalist and author at Div Bracket. He specializes in covering trending news across a wide range of topics, from politics to entertainment and everything in between.