'Beat Xiaomi in a minute': Gree's phone team was dissolved eight years later

In early 2015 Gree Electric chairman Dong Mingzhu declared that Gree phones would 'beat Xiaomi within three years and become world number one', adding that making a phone was 'too easy — in a minute'. The first Gree phone went on sale in June 2015 at 1,600 yuan, with Dong's portrait as the boot screen. She later claimed sales of 50 million units were no problem.

Over eight years Gree released several handsets, but never published a single sales figure; the phones were mostly sold through Gree's own channels and staff, and most consumers never saw one. The phone's official website stopped working and its WeChat account stopped updating in April 2020.

In mid-2023 tech media reported that Gree had disbanded its phone core team — a Shenzhen team that peaked near 100 people, down to about 40 by mid-2022 and then dissolved. Gree said development 'continues' and Dong said she would 'never give up' phones, but the 2022 annual report no longer mentioned the category at all.