Tuesday, March, 19, 2024 05:06:18

Meitu will roll out a face-cleansing brush which will be able to detect the best pulsing setting for a user automatically by identifying his or her skin condition.

The Chinese firm Meitu Inc., popular for its selfie image-enhancing app, reportedly announced that it will venture into the offline skincare market. The move comes as part of its efforts to offset the falling in number of app users and a money losing smartphone business.

According to the Gadgets 360, Meitu was listed in late 2016 in Hong Kong and became the largest tech IPO in Hong Kong in a decade. Since then, it has suffered losses and its share price has decreased by more than half. It has also suffered due to the decline in China’s smartphone market by 16 percent in the year 2018.

In November, Meitu had unveiled a deal to receive brand and tech licenses from Xiaomi Corp in exchange of the business to outsource manufacturing of the smartphone to Xiaomi.

Meitu has reportedly announced that it will roll out a face-cleansing brush which will be able to detect the best pulsing setting for a user automatically by identifying his or her skin condition.

Meitu’s beauty-centric camera apps had been popular in China in around 2015. The app had a strong demand from female users, but it recently met a decline in its number of users. As per company’s earnings report, the monthly active users across its suite of apps have declined by 19.9 percent from a year earlier, during the six-month period to end-December. Meitu has made up most of its sales by its smartphone division over the same period, however, high cost led the company to a loss overall.

The domestic smartphone makers have been increasing prices to boost margins but less smartphone sales and a softening economy have burdened them, cited reliable sources.

For the record, Meitu’s shares have closed up 4.6 percent at HK$3.45 which is less than its $HK8.5 IPO price.