China-based vendor smartphone Meizu plans to slash its workforce as part of its restructuring plan, with less than 5% of its total 4,000 employees to be affected, according to China-based sina.com report.

The restructuring plan comes as a surprise as the vendor saw its smartphone shipments surge 350% on year to over 20 million units in 2015, said the report.

However, other sources commented that Meizu is reshuffling its strategy as well as management team as it aims to ramp up its shipments by another 25% on year in 2016.

Meizu is likely to amend its focus on the release models with high price/performance ratios as such a strategy is dangerous, said the report, citing company vice president Li Nan.

Models with a price tag of around CNY1,000 (US$152) accounted for about 50% of Meizu's total shipments in 2015, and three out of its top-five selling models currently are the vendor's low-priced Meizu Meilan family of products, the report noted.

Meanwhile, a total of 16 smartphone OEMs in China were forced to close their operations in 2015, added the report.

Other OEMs are shifting their focus to produce branded models which generate more profits than those in the sub-CNY1,000 segment, said the report.