Gionee Communication Equipment Co., Ltd. — 6 prefixes (MA-L)

A MAC address beginning with one of six confirmed OUI prefixes — 04:56:04, B8:98:F7, B8:B4:2E, DC:DE:4F, 48:A3:80, or 34:78:D7 — belongs to Gionee Communication Equipment Co., Ltd., a Shenzhen-based Android smartphone maker, and is typically seen on a Gionee-branded mobile handset rather than networking or IoT hardware.

Gionee was founded in Shenzhen on 16 September 2002 and grew into one of the world's top-10 mobile handset makers at its peak, shipping Android smartphones to 40+ countries and regions, including carrier channels in eight countries. Its best-known model, the Gionee Elife S5, was marketed as the world's slimmest phone at launch.

The original Shenzhen entity declared bankruptcy in 2017 after its chairman lost company funds gambling. The Gionee brand survived the collapse: Karbonn's promoters acquired it in India in 2019 and continue releasing Gionee-branded phones there, including the Gionee Max Pro in 2021 — a different corporate owner from the OUI registrant below.

All six MA-L blocks register to the same Shenzhen entity and address family (21/F, Times Technology Building, No. 7028, Shennan/Shennan Road Avenue, Futian District, Shenzhen, Guangdong), confirming a genuine multi-OUI registrant rather than a bare single-block shell.

A documented device-trust incident is directly relevant to any Gionee MAC identification: Gionee subsidiary Shenzhen Zhipu Technology secretly installed Trojan-horse malware on tens of millions of Gionee smartphones between December 2018 and October 2019 to fraudulently inflate app-usage metrics. A Yiwu court found Zhipu guilty on 30 November 2020; the scheme netted roughly 27.9 million yuan, and Zhipu's legal representative received a 3.5-year prison term plus a 200,000-yuan fine.

IEEE's public the IEEE MA-L registry publishes no assignment or registration date for any of these six prefixes — the format is Registry, Assignment, Organization Name, Organization Address only. A third-party tool (maclookup.app) displays dates for two of the six (B8:98:F7 as 2013-11-12, B8:B4:2E as 2011-06-05), but these are third-party database artifacts, not IEEE facts, and are not recorded as IEEE registration dates here.

IEEE assignment

6 prefixes → "Gionee Communication Equipment Co., Ltd." (minor spelling/punctuation variants across records — same entity) [Confirmed] — IEEE MA-L (lines 10628, 11506, 11981, 25817, 34142, 34153)

Registry / block size

MA-L only (24-bit OUI); 6 confirmed blocks [Confirmed] — the IEEE MA-L registry

HQ / country

21/F, Times Technology Building, No. 7028, Shennan Road/Avenue, Futian District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, CN (postal code shown as 518000 on some rows, 518040 on others — both valid for Futian District) [Confirmed] — IEEE MA-L

Company status

original Shenzhen entity declared bankruptcy in 2017; the Gionee brand continues in India under different ownership (Karbonn's promoters, acquired 2019) [Confirmed] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gionee

Device types

Android smartphones / mobile handsets [Confirmed] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gionee, global.gionee.com

Notable products

Gionee Elife S5 (marketed as world's slimmest phone at launch); Gionee Max Pro (India, 2021, post-acquisition, different corporate owner) [Confirmed] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gionee

Verified sample prefixes (all MA-L, Gionee Communication Equipment)

04:56:04, B8:98:F7, B8:B4:2E, DC:DE:4F, 48:A3:80, 34:78:D7 [Confirmed] — IEEE MA-L

Registration dates

not applicable — IEEE's public the IEEE MA-L registry has no date column for any of these 6 prefixes; a third-party tool (maclookup.app) shows dates for B8:98:F7 (2013-11-12) and B8:B4:2E (2011-06-05) but these are database artifacts, not IEEE facts

[Confirmed] — standards-oui.ieee.org/oui/oui.csv, maclookup.app

Special note

subsidiary Shenzhen Zhipu Technology installed Trojan-horse malware on tens of millions of Gionee smartphones (Dec 2018–Oct 2019) to fraudulently inflate app-usage metrics; Yiwu court verdict 30 Nov 2020 found Zhipu guilty, ~27.9M yuan illicit gain, legal representative sentenced to 3.5 years plus a 200,000-yuan fine

[Confirmed] — caixinglobal.com

Related vendors

BLU Products Inc. (Gionee cited as one of BLU's Chinese ODM hardware suppliers) [Confirmed] — /mac/vendor/blu-products/

Analyst note

multi-OUI (6 blocks), substantive consumer-electronics registrant with a documented product line and a court-adjudicated device-trust incident — not a bare single-OUI shell.