Pulled the withdrawn article from a cache:
Quote:
Boyue has been making e-readers for six years and primarily focused on the Chinese market. Over the course of the past three years, they started to market their products overseas and introduced English to spur adoption. Their first generation of products that were developed for a wider audience was the Likebook Mars, Mimas, Muses, Ares and Alita. The vast majority of these were ebook readers, that came with a WACOM screen and had note taking functionality. Sales were very strong and reviewers had mostly good things to say. In 2020, Boyue took the year off and started their own factory and started to make their own devices, instead of outsourcing the manufacturing to a 3rd party. The first new devices they released were the Likebook P6, Likebook P78, Likebook P10, they also signed an agreement with LemonRead to produce thousands of units, but the deal mostly fell through. This resulted in Boyue having a surplus of over one thousand units, that they had to write off. Good e-Reader has official confirmation that Boyue is going out of business and the Likebook brand has been sold to Ruixin Group.
Boyue is going out of business within the next few weeks and most of their staff at their corporate headquarters in Shenzen will be laid off. Their factories have already closed. Some of their senior executives will be staying on during the transitionary period. They will be advising them with software development, which includes the source code for all of their devices. They also have a warranty program and all of this information is stored in a database, which will be forwarded and shared. Ruixin is now processing payments from distributors and wholesalers for Likebook orders, they have been doing this for the past few months.
One of the reasons why Boyue went out of the business is due to their inaccessibility. They never developed their own website or internet forums for help and support. They ran a Twitter account and Facebook Group, but none of them had any moderators to answer any questions. These social platforms existed to promote their own products. Boyue sold their own products in the Chinese market directly, on platforms such as AliExpress. They had a number of distributors, that bought devices and resold them on their own websites and e-commerce platforms. I know some of the stronger markets were in South-East Asia, such as Vietnam. Good e-Reader is also an official disturber of Boyue, and we are their largest partner. One of the other reasons why the business failed, was the EPD (electronic paper display) shortage. Their P6, P78 and P10 e-readers were selling very well, but they couldn’t meet the demand from consumers, there simply was not as many e-paper panels to go around. The only product that is currently being sold is the P10W, which has a WACOM display and a new note taking system. All of the distributors that Boyue had, are now paying Ruixin for these products.
The Likebook brand will be officially dead, and no new products will have this name, going forward, starting next year. It remains unclear what the brand name will be called and or the marketing message. Ruixin will be developing their own line of products. They will be developing a successor to the P78, called the P78 Pro. All of the other devices are currently unknown, but I believe some should be announced by the Summer or Fall of 2022.
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