Only Huawei, no brand. This is the impression of the latest new AITO M5 displayed in Huawei experience store on some consumers. “As soon as I came here, the sales told me what Huawei advanced technology was used in this car, how advanced the appearance and interior upholstery were, and how it was consistent with Huawei’s consistent style.” On December 28, Xie Bolong, a consumer living in Fengtai District, Beijing, came to Huawei’s first new concept store in the world, which had just opened, and saw the just released question M5.
Xie Bolong was puzzled that the logo “jinkangxilis” on the rear of M5 was an unfamiliar name that the salesperson did not take the initiative to mention. Until he asked, the salesperson told him that the car was a product built by the in-depth cooperation between Huawei and Thales. At the same time, he didn’t forget to say “Huawei doesn’t make cars, but Huawei helps car companies build good cars”.
This sentence spoken casually by the salesperson is also an old saying that Huawei has emphasized many times. Recently, Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of consumer business and CEO of smart car solutions, mentioned this sentence at the M5 new car launch in Shenzhen.
However, after the release of M5, this old saying became contradictory – Huawei has actually “built cars”, but still regards itself as a supplier. It is recognized that the two roles of making cars and being suppliers have great conflict, because if enterprises play these two roles at the same time, it will be difficult to give consideration to the originality and openness of their own technology.
In fact, the conflict between the two roles of car making and supplier has begun to appear in Huawei. On December 25, the large-scale delivery night of Huawei hi version originally planned to be held in Shenzhen was not held as scheduled.
A person familiar with the matter told the Economic Observer: “Huawei has put aside the extreme Fox and replaced it with well-off Cyrus. In fact, this is also an important trade-off between Huawei and its partners. Huawei feels that Cyrus is more obedient and it is more difficult to cooperate with extreme fox.”
Although Huawei finally “chose” Thales, Thales did not completely buy it. A person close to Cyrus told the economic observer, “Yu Chengdong left Cyrus very clean, misleading everyone to think that AITO is made by Huawei, but this is not the case”.
For Huawei’s contradictory approach, one explanation in the industry is that “raw rice makes mature rice first”, and cars are built first and then logo is added. According to Zhang Kangkang, senior analyst of Qingyan Huake New Energy Research Institute, unlike apple and Xiaomi’s strategy of building cars in pursuit of blockbuster, Huawei belongs to working first and iterating quickly – just like the history of counter attack in the field of mobile phones, I believe Huawei will build cars.
Huawei’s monologue
Although Huawei has repeatedly stressed that it “does not build cars, focuses on ICT and is a supplier of incremental parts for smart cars”, at its recent winter new product launch, Huawei came to the stage for the first time behind the scenes in the automotive industry by releasing the first model M5 of AITO brand.
Before that, there was no precedent in the automotive industry for suppliers to release vehicle products instead of brands. From the perspective of trademark ownership, AITO brand undoubtedly belongs to the well-off group behind xilis.
The AITO brand has been regarded as a “Pro son” of Huawei. As a new “pressure platform”, qjie M5 occupied up to half of the time of the whole press conference, which extended the 90 minute press conference originally planned to more than 150 minutes.
More than one hour’s M5 release activity has become Huawei’s one-man show. Not only did there be no Celes related people on the stage, but Yu Chengdong rarely mentioned Celes in his speech, but mainly emphasized Huawei’s role in the process of new car manufacturing. As a contrast, Yu Chengdong made a video speech when Thales released the AITO brand in early December, and the speeches of relevant people of Thales also frequently mentioned Huawei.
Yu Chengdong’s “strong” attitude in this release is interpreted by the outside world as that Huawei is the real leader and helmsman of AITO brand. “This time, we used the industrial design team, software team and user experience team of Huawei’s consumer business to build this product together.” Yu Chengdong stressed that AITO M5 integrates Huawei’s advantages in many aspects.
In addition to the hardware and software of the vehicle itself, AITO also has a deep brand of Huawei at a higher brand level. Yu Chengdong said, “when designing this car, I asked the team that we should adhere to the brand spirit that Huawei consumer bu (business team) has adhered to for 10 years. We call it ‘three modernizations’, and the brand spirit of high-end, fashion and youth”.
By personally releasing the AITO brand M5, Huawei has sent a high-profile signal to the industry that it has substantially built a car, and the saying that “Huawei does not build a car” has become a “cover up”.
neglected little partner
The signal delivered by Yu Chengdong at the press conference was quickly transmitted to the capital market. On the day of the release of AITO M5, the parent company Chongqing Sokon Industry Group Stock Co.Ltd(601127) of Cyrus fell by more than 7%, fell by the limit for two consecutive days, and the market value shrank by more than 17 billion yuan in two trading days.
This triggered strong dissatisfaction on the part of Cyrus. A person close to Thales told the Economic Observer: “AITO’s vehicle technology and R & D design are made by Thales, and Huawei only brings in new vehicles, including some interior configurations, but these must not call AITO Huawei.”
Huawei’s involvement in AITO brand has deviated from the business scope of general automobile suppliers. In addition to releasing vehicle products on behalf of the brand, Huawei’s support for AITO brand at the channel level also exceeds the previous cooperative model Thalis Huawei smart sF5.
The salesperson of a Huawei authorized experience store in Beijing introduced to the economic observer that previously, Huawei smart selected sF5. Huawei was only responsible for sales, not after-sales. Huawei took over the sales and after-sales links of M5 in the world, and even the charging pile was marked with Huawei’s logo.
As a “supplier” unwilling to provide only parts, Huawei not only put aside xilis, but also showed signs of “cooling” in its relationship with another car enterprise partner Jihu.
“Huawei has expressed its dissatisfaction with extreme fox, possibly because in terms of cooperation, extreme fox factory adopts Magna’s design concept, management mode and workflow. Huawei hopes to replace Magna’s thinking with its own thinking, because the two are completely incompatible, and extreme fox is not willing to do so.” These people familiar with the matter said.
During the Guangzhou auto show in November 2021, Jihu revealed that the large-scale delivery and appreciation activity of the new hi version of alpha s will be held in Shenzhen on December 25. For the location of the event, the outside world is not surprised. Shenzhen is the headquarters of extreme fox partner Huawei, and the important selling point of extreme fox alpha Shi version lies in the strong Huawei Technology brand.
However, on December 23, the Secretary of Jihu’s parent company Baic Bluepark New Energy Technology Co.Ltd(600733) told the investors that the large-scale delivery appraisal activity originally scheduled to be held on December 25 had been replaced by the internal delivery activity held at Baic Bluepark New Energy Technology Co.Ltd(600733) Magna intelligent manufacturing production base, i.e. Zhenjiang factory on December 20.
There are more details that show that there has been a “mutual dislike gap” between Jihu and Huawei. At the 2021 Guangzhou auto show, Jihu stressed that the car has three “firsts”, including “the world’s first mass-produced car equipped with Huawei hi full stack intelligent driving solution, the world’s first mass-produced car supporting high-level intelligent driving on urban roads, and the world’s first pure electric car equipped with Hongmeng OS”.
However, on December 22, at an official media communication meeting, Jihu only called the car “the world’s first high-level intelligent driving mass production vehicle supporting urban roads”. From this caliber alone, we can no longer see the relationship between the car and Huawei. The new hi version of alpha s no longer mentions the title of “the world’s first pure electric car equipped with Hongmeng OS”, while the M5 is called “the first Hongmeng car” by Huawei.
A person close to Jihu reluctantly told the economic observer, “after all, everyone is grabbing the concept of the first paragraph. AITO is his own brand. It is certain that Jihu can only make way.”.
between Huawei advance and retreat
While shouting the slogan of “don’t build a car”, Huawei is adding “build a car” under the banner of cooperation. Huawei doesn’t know that this will arouse the concern of its partners, but it insists. Under the seemingly contradictory mentality, Huawei may already have its own plans.
At the Shanghai auto show in April 2021, Huawei became the “top stream” in the industry in an absolute sense. At that time, Huawei announced high-profile in-depth cooperation with Thales, and vehicle manufacturers such as Jihu, GAC and Chang’an were vigorously rubbing Huawei’s traffic. It is a matter of boast for the whole vehicle factory to get involved with the concept of Huawei.
However, half a year has passed, and the “enabling” effect of Huawei expected by the industry has not appeared. With the in-depth cooperation with Huawei, xilis Huawei smart selected sF5, there was no scene of hot sales. Extreme fox has not gained too much popularity in the market because of Huawei’s hi full stack intelligent driving solution.
It is precisely because of the poor market expectation of Huawei smart sF5 that Huawei and Thales plan to rebuild AITO, a high-end brand. In fact, “starting a new stove” to rebuild a new brand has long been what many independent brands have done in the process of moving towards high-end, especially under the background of the emergence of medium and high-end brands of independent brands.
It is understood that there has been a long-term dispute over whether to build a car within Huawei. In November 2020, Huawei formed two camps for whether to “build cars”, among which Yu Chengdong was the leader of the “car building faction”. In the face of internal disputes, Ren Zhengfei personally made a decision, high-profile drew the red line that Huawei did not build a car, and mentioned that “who will make suggestions to build a car in the future, interfere with the company, and can be transferred from his post”.
However, the general view in the industry is that “no car” is only a paper consensus within Huawei, and the private struggle between the two factions is still fierce.
Looking back on Huawei’s entry into the automotive industry, it is actually only two years. An important background for Huawei to enter the automobile industry is that its mobile phone business has suffered a setback, and it needs to find a new growth point. Yu Chengdong has repeatedly made relevant statements on making up for the loss of mobile phone business.
The data show that Huawei’s mobile phone business shrank again in 2021. In the third quarter, Huawei’s mobile phone shipments in the global market were 5.8 million units, with a market share of only 2%, a month on month decrease of 40.8% and a year-on-year decrease of 84.95%. Affected by the mobile phone business, Huawei’s revenue in the first three quarters of 2021 was 451 billion yuan, a decrease of more than 200 billion yuan over the same period last year, a year-on-year decrease of 32.14%.
According to Yan Jinghui, an auto industry analyst, the M5 should be a car built by Yu Chengdong under the pressure of the “no car” red line. Huawei may not let go of the principle of “no car building” in the short term, but Yu Chengdong will not give up and continue to substantially promote “car building”. “This is exactly what the car makers want to happen.” An automotive industry analyst told the economic observer that Huawei’s internal car makers hope that the outside world will have expectations of Huawei’s overall responsibility, in fact blocking the possibility of Huawei’s cooperation with large vehicle manufacturers as Tier1, and finally leaving Huawei only the road of car making to achieve darkness.
(Economic Observer network)
