Another car company has entered the mobile phone industry. Recently, according to various sources, Weilai, a new force in China’s car making, has initially set up a mobile phone business department to prepare for cross-border “machine making”.
According to 36 krypton, Yin Shuijun, former president of Meitu mobile phone, will lead the above business.
Another person close to the mobile phone circle said that Weilai’s mobile phone business was planned in the middle of last year and has recruited many people. “More than 100 new offers have been made after the year, and more than 200 R & D posts are expected to be added in Shenzhen recently, including high school and low school.”
On February 23, a R & D person from a well-known mobile phone manufacturer also told the 21st Century Business Herald that he had received a headhunter call to discuss the matter years ago. He did not disclose his personal whereabouts, but said that “it is not easy to make mobile phones”.
There are also many clues about Weilai’s mobile phone Department on a workplace social platform. A person who got the relevant offer said that the proportion of shares in the salary structure was very large and calculated at the price of $38 per share. He gave up because he felt it was not cost-effective; Other job seekers are looking at relevant opportunities. At present, there is no HC (head count) of products, which shows that this business is still in a very early stage to a certain extent.
So far, Weilai has not responded positively to the above news, but has not denied it. “At present, there is no information available for disclosure. We will communicate with you if there is further information.” On February 22, Wei Lai told the media.
Various signs show that there is basically no suspense about Weilai making mobile phones.
From Geely to Weilai, why do car companies cross into the mobile phone industry? Is it self-reliance as a last resort, or a backhand blow in response to the door-to-door “kicking” of mobile phone manufacturers?
mobile phone manufacturers make cars and car enterprises make mobile phones
Wei Lai makes mobile phones. In the current market environment, it’s not surprising.
Before that, mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Huawei made cars across borders (although Huawei repeatedly claimed to “not make cars”), and then Geely took the lead in breaking the bureau to make mobile phones. The two industries of automobile and mobile phone have unprecedented intersection and integration, and it is reasonable to have another entrant.
In fact, before Geely announced its entry into the mobile phone industry last year, it was said that “(in addition to Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Group), more than one car circle boss began to layout the mobile phone business.”
Now it seems that Li Bin, chairman of Weilai, and Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Group, quickly reached an agreement on whether to make mobile phones. Coincidentally, Weilai and Geely are car companies with a wide business layout, and Li Bin and Li Shufu have also had a lot of contacts in the past two years.
In August last year, Geely established lutes Technology Co., Ltd., a relatively small luxury sports car brand, which began the transformation of electrification and intelligence. Weilai capital made a strategic investment in it, and Li Bin also personally supported it; Earlier in 2019, Weilai was short of funds and looked around for investors. Li Shufu was also a hot spot – in many exchanges, the two may find that they have a lot of consensus, including trying to make cross-border mobile phones.
At the end of September last year, Geely announced to enter the field of mobile phones and set up Hubei Xingji times Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Xingji times”) in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone. Although there has been no official announcement since then, various external rumors have not been stopped. At the beginning of 2022, many media reported that Xingji era is contacting Meizu to negotiate the acquisition, and has entered the stage of due diligence.
On the other hand, in the past year, new progress has also been made in the car making projects of mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Huawei. Xiaomi automobile officially approved the project, quickly registered a business entity and settled in Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone; While Huawei promoted the mass production of models with three key cooperative car enterprises, its deeply empowered brand AITO was born, and the first model M5 was officially released.
Enterprises cross borders and personnel flow is more frequent. After Xiaomi announced to build a car, Hu Zhengnan, President of Geely Automobile Research Institute, joined Shunwei capital of Xiaomi department and was considered to be the person in charge of Xiaomi automobile. In January this year, Xiaomi appointed Yu Liguo as vice president of Xiaomi automobile and political commissar of Xiaomi automobile’s Beijing headquarters. Yu Liguo was the president of BAIC’s new energy brand Jihu; Geely has also “poached” a number of executives in the mobile phone industry, such as Zhang Yadong, former general manager of Zte Corporation(000063) PHS product line, Wang Wenjun, former chief architect of Xiaomi MIUI, and so on.
The mutual penetration of mobile phone and automobile industries has also aroused the vigilance of large companies. According to 36 krypton, in the middle of this month, Xiaomi mobile phone began to implement a competitive agreement, which is mainly for core talents above level 19. The competitive companies include new car making forces such as Weilai, Xiaopeng automobile and ideal automobile.
intelligent terminal “two hands”
With the continuous improvement of the level of intelligence, the identity of the car has accelerated its transformation from a traditional means of transportation to another intelligent terminal, and the experience and interaction attributes have been unprecedentedly enhanced. This is the common background for mobile phone manufacturers to build cars across borders and automobile manufacturers to build mobile phones across borders.
The automobile will largely copy the evolution path of the mobile phone industry, from mechanical to intelligent. While competing for hardware performance, the PK of software ecology will also play an important role.
From the perspective of mobile phone manufacturers, entering the automotive field based on mobile phone business is expected to lead the transformation of automotive intelligence; From the perspective of automobile manufacturers, it is more safe to upgrade their own business and complete industry reform.
In the view of some car enterprise leaders, mobile phones may be a threshold that can not be bypassed, or a “sharp tool for customs clearance” to get through the whole smart car ecosystem.
As for why we should make mobile phones, Li Shufu once said, “mobile phones are the application carrier of electronic product market verification and software innovation. They can not only enable users to share innovative achievements as soon as possible, but also transfer some safe and reliable achievements to automobile applications, so as to realize the close interaction between automobile and mobile phone software technology.”
He also said that in the future, it has become a general trend to build a cross-border user ecological chain and build an enterprise moat according to law. Mobile phones can link the Internet of vehicles and satellite Internet, create rich consumption scenes, strengthen the ecosystem, and provide users with a more convenient, intelligent and interconnected multi screen interactive life experience.
It can be understood that the current development level of vehicle intelligence is not satisfactory. Learning from the mobile phone industry with mature technology and connecting it with vehicle intelligence is expected to solve a major contradiction in the automotive field: the contradiction between users’ increasing demand for vehicle intelligence and the lack of breakthrough and slight weakness of vehicle experience.
However, Geely and Weilai do not need to lay out mobile phone business simply by learning from mobile phone technology.
More importantly, mobile phone is the mobile intelligent terminal with the largest shipment volume at present, with high penetration and wide application scenarios. Although automobile is also an intelligent terminal, it is impossible to replace mobile phone. Moreover, from the perspective of automobile, some functions and scenarios are not necessary. Therefore, mobile phone is indispensable in the future intelligent automobile ecological chain.
In the future intelligent terminal form, vehicle machine coordination must be the norm. On the one hand, the mobile phone will become the entrance and key of the car. For example, the air conditioning, seat heating, ventilation and other functions in the car can be started in advance through the app of the mobile phone; On the other hand, some controversial functions on the car machine can be carried by the mobile phone without burden, so as to maximize the efficiency of the car machine.
For Geely’s announcement to enter the field of mobile phones, China Merchants Securities Co.Ltd(600999) international team has also commented on the move, which is to pave the way for the long-term integration of smart cars and smart phones – at the same time, the layout of mobile phones and smart cars can realize the integration of smart terminals, and the software can be seamlessly connected between cars and mobile phones to form a complete ecological chain.
who would reject the “second growth curve”?
It makes sense for car companies to make mobile phones in business logic. Then the second question comes. Is it reliable for car companies to make mobile phones?
Mobile phone manufacturers also faced similar doubts in the early stage of cross-border car making. Compared with mobile phones, the number of auto parts is more, the supply chain is more complex, the scale manufacturing is more difficult, and the amount of funds required is higher – this is not an industry without barriers.
However, Tesla, a new foreign car making force, has taken the lead in breaking the “high wall” of the automobile industry. With the acceleration of electrification and intelligence, the threshold of car making has been reduced. The century old automobile industry is bound to welcome the participation of a number of emerging forces. These new forces may not be mobile phone manufacturers with the same mass production process and software foundation.
Mobile phone manufacturers make cars, which more or less means fighting back. The accepted logic of the industry is that compared with the highly competitive mobile phone industry, the incremental space of the smart electric vehicle industry is huge. Mobile phone manufacturers cross-border build cars and look for the second growth curve.
On the contrary, the mobile phone market is already a red sea, with fierce fighting. It seems that it is not a rational choice for car companies to turn around and rush into this field. A person in the field of investment in the automotive industry told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter: “I don’t think Weilai wants to build mobile phones. Mobile phones are completely different from car machines and cars. It’s totally unnecessary – isn’t it fragrant to better interact mobile phones, intelligent hardware and car space?”
But further, the automobile industry has also been “rolled up” with the naked eye. The market increment space is huge, but no one can guarantee the smooth development of every player. From this perspective, making mobile phones by automobile enterprises is also a kind of preparation. Who will refuse the “second growth curve”?
Geely and Wei Lai are not without ambition. Geely’s mobile phone is positioned as a high-end smart phone. Li Shufu believes that with the rapid iteration of mobile communication technology and the upgrading of personalized consumption, users’ demand for smart phones has become dependent, and the development prospect of more high-end and smart phones is still promising; Although Weilai has no “official announcement”, according to 36 krypton, Weilai mobile phone basically excludes the possibility of labeling, but will personally develop and design.
In the era of smart cars, car companies have also laid out relevant businesses in the mobile phone industry chain. Geely and Weilai are developing low-level technologies such as chips and operating systems, and have accumulated experience in the fields of design, R & D, high-end intelligent manufacturing and industrial chain management. The threshold for making mobile phones is relatively low.
Geely’s automobile intelligent technology company Yikatong once released a document introducing the development differences between the vehicle terminal and the mobile terminal. It can be seen that the development difficulty and requirements of the vehicle terminal are higher, while the mobile terminal is better.
It is also an intelligent information system. The ecology of mobile phone is mature. Mobile phone itself is an independent and closed system engineering, but the on-board intelligent terminal is not an extension of simple intelligent technology. Because it can obtain vehicle signal data, it is still a vehicle engineering in essence.
The above documents also pointed out that the reliability requirements in the electronic field are generally: consumer level (mobile phone and computer) < industrial level (industrial control equipment) < automotive level. The vehicle machine is much more strict than the mobile phone in various indicators such as function test and damp heat test, and the requirements for software and hardware development are higher. "In terms of hardware, the operating temperature range and other indicators of the mobile phone processor often fail to meet the requirements of the vehicle specification level. The vehicle hardware compromises in the process and performance in order to meet the vehicle specification level standard certification; in terms of software, the differences in the use scene and environment of the vehicle also increase the difficulty of development. For example, the vehicle has a short start-up time. In order to achieve the effect of ignition and bright screen, it is necessary to Cutting and secondary development of unnecessary parts of the system. "
It is worth mentioning that the cross-border mobile phone business of automobile enterprises is also an extension of their own brands. Geely and Weilai are mature brands, especially Weilai, with significant brand labels and their own channels. It is not difficult to sell more than one category from the consumer side. Huawei has a precedent in this regard. A person close to the automotive circulation field told the 21st Century Business Herald that after the improvement of product power, Huawei’s appeal in the automotive field is still very strong. “Recently, the number of stores in AITO has been rising.”
However, objectively speaking, the business layout to more fields also puts forward higher requirements for the management ability of the helmsman and the resource allocation of the company. The outside world still has many differences on the prospect of Weilai and Geely making mobile phones, just as many people are not optimistic about the automobile business of Xiaomi and Huawei. In fact, Weilai and Geely themselves have a lot of layout. They have invested in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and even in some fields that are not related at first glance. The extent to which mobile phone business can be achieved is not completely pessimistic for Geely and Weilai, which are “big factories” holding resources.
