Last year's promising smartphone OEM, Maze Mobile, may just have gone under

New information has surfaced pointing towards the closure of Maze Mobile. The company’s website has been put on sale for a while now, which is always a sign of troubled waters.

Maze rose and peaked in 2017. The company, founded in 2012, got into the game with devices like the Maze Blade and Maze Alpha—we actually reviewed the Apha X a few months ago. The company took to the market like fish to water, its devices offering fine specifications at extremely competitive price points. 

Sadly, it would seem that offering value for money isn’t all it takes to make it in the smartphone business. The Chinese market is already incredibly saturated and is something of a Doogee dog environment, pardon the terrible pun. It also didn’t help that sales numbers for the local smartphone rise saw a decline in 2017, with even more of the market share gravitating from the smaller OEMs to the bigger brands like Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo, and Apple. 2017 may just have been the worst possible time for Maze to join the game.

It's not a just a Chinese thing, either. The recent failure of Essential with the PH-1 and the imminent sale of the company says much about the level of competition in the Android business.

Of course, there’s no official confirmation that the company has gone under. If it has, though, that’s a massive shame. Adieu, Maze, you will be missed.