Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is investing US$590 million for a minority stake in domestic smartphone and consumer electronics maker, Meizu Technology Co. Ltd.

Meizu was founded in 2003 based in Zhuhai, Guangdong province and is one of the top 10 smartphone manufacturers in China.

Like Us on Facebook

Alibaba and Meizu said the collaboration aims to integrate Alibaba's YunOS (Aliyun) mobile operating system with Meizu's hardware.

"The investment in Meizu represents a significant expansion of the Alibaba Group ecosystem and an important step in our overall mobile strategy as we strive to bring users a wider array of mobile offerings and experiences," said Jian Wang, Alibaba's CTO.

Meizu's smartphones run on the company's own customized version of the Android operating system, dubbed as Flyme OS.

Both companies said last October they also intend to integrate the design and experience of Meizu's Flyme OS with Alibaba's YunOS security and payment functions.

YunOS is the e-commerce's mobile operating system unveiled in 2011 and which means 'cloud' in Mandarin.

"Alibaba wants to promote its operating system and fight for mobile access points," said Li Yujie, an analyst from the RHB Research Institute Sdn.

"Meizu is one of the better homegrown mobile-phone makers in China, so it makes sense for Alibaba to work with them."

Last year, the e-commerce giant invested US$50 million in U.S.-based mobile search engine company Quixey, Inc, to develop and improve search engine technology.

The partnership was also aimed at improving YunOS's mobile search engine results.

TagsYunOS, Aliyun, Flyme OS, mobile, Operating System