Jianghuai Automobile responded to the cooperation with Huawei to build cars: More possibilities cannot be ruled out in the future

On December 28, according to China Securities News, in response to the rumor that Jianghuai Automobile will cooperate with Huawei to build cars in recent days, jianghuai automobile securities department responded: "At present, Huawei is currently our technology supplier, and our products are equipped with some of Huawei's technologies, and there has been cooperation before." ”

For the possibility of future cooperation in car building, the staff member said: "This is not ruled out, because the cooperation between JAC and Huawei has always been relatively pleasant, and the two sides have always had a good cooperative relationship." As for whether it will adopt the cooperation model between Huawei and Xiaokang, Jianghuai Automobile said that there are more possibilities in the future that can be explored.

As early as December 2019, JIANGHUAI Automobile and Huawei officially signed a comprehensive cooperation framework agreement and an MDC platform project cooperation agreement. The cooperation between JAC Automobile and Huawei will rely on a more advanced technology platform to further carry out innovative research and development and improve the level of intelligence of JAC Motors. At the same time, the two sides will carry out in-depth cooperation in intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, intelligent electric, intelligent networking and cloud services, accelerate the research and development and commercialization process of related products and solutions, comprehensively improve the intelligent level of Jianghuai Automobile, and jointly promote the landing and development of intelligent transportation.

In addition, Jianghuai Automobile said on the interactive platform that the company is cooperating with Huawei in HMS (mobile services), intelligent driving core sensors, MDC (mobile data center), intelligent cockpit and other aspects. This means that Huawei's Hongmeng OS system and intelligent driving technologies will be installed in a certain model of Jiangqi Group.

In fact, Huawei's technology has already been adopted by Jacque Motors' mass-produced models. For example, JAC's Sihao QX, Sihaoyao and other models are equipped with Huawei's ecological vehicle and machine system; Sihao E50X uses Huawei's motor system; and another model to be listed, Sihao E50A Pro, will be equipped with Huawei's intelligent driving system. However, in the past cooperation, Huawei has carried out local cooperation with Jianghuai Automobile in the role of a supplier, and it is far from reaching the depth of cooperation between Jinkang Cyrus and Huawei.

Recently, Jinkang Cyrus and Huawei jointly released the high-end smart car brand AITO and its first model, the Q&I M5. Compared with the previously launched Xilix Huawei Smart SF5, the two sides have gone further and cooperated around technology, channels and products. The Q&I M5 is equipped with HUAWEI DriveONE pure electric drive range extension platform and HarmonyOS smart cockpit, and has a soft and hardware collaboration of HUAWEI terminal cloud services in the vehicle application ecosystem. In addition, the new car will be sold as a smart car on the Huawei channel.

In fact, in recent years, Jianghuai Automobile has gradually improved the passive situation of the passenger car business by trying to expand the "circle of friends".

In December 2020, Volkswagen China Investment's capital increase in Jianghuai Holdings and Volkswagen China Investment and Jianghuai China Investment completed the change of industrial and commercial registration, and the Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and Volkswagen China Investment respectively held 50% of the equity of Jianghuai Holdings; Jiangqi Shares held 25% of the equity of Jianghuai Volkswagen, and Volkswagen China Investment held 75% of the equity of Jianghuai Volkswagen. JAC Volkswagen Co., Ltd. changed its name to "Volkswagen (Anhui) Co., Ltd." According to the plan, Volkswagen (Anhui) will be built as a localization production base of Volkswagen's SSP platform, and will produce pure electric vehicles based on the SSP platform from 2026, when 40 million vehicles will be born on the platform.

In May 2021, the cooperation between NIO and Jianghuai Automobile was further deepened, and the two sides renewed their three-year manufacturing contract to continue to produce NIO ES8, ES6, EC6, ET7 and other planned new models, and expanded the annual production capacity to 240,000 units. Among them, NIO is responsible for vehicle design and development, supply chain management, manufacturing technology and quality management and assurance, while jianglai manufacturing, a joint venture established by the two parties, will be responsible for the assembly and operation management of auto parts.

In addition, Jianghuai Automobile has joined hands with technology companies such as Baidu, iFLYTEK, and Horizon Robotics in the fields of intelligent driving, intelligent networking, and artificial intelligence. With the cooperation with the above-mentioned enterprises, the company has been able to maintain its position in the industry in the tide of transformation of the "new four modernizations".

In the second half of this year, there were also rumors that Xiaomi planned to cooperate with Jacque to build cars. Jianghuai Automobile responded that after verification by the company, the content of the report that JAC or OEM for Xiaomi was not true. The company has not discussed with Xiaomi on cooperation in car building, nor has it reached any intention to cooperate in car building. In November, Xiaomi responded: "After confirming with colleagues in the automotive team, so far we have not had any discussions and contacts with Jianghuai Automobile on the cooperation of car manufacturing OEM and capital acquisition, and we will not comment on market rumors." ”

The company's production and sales express report shows that from January to November 2021, Jianghuai Automobile's annual cumulative sales of passenger cars were 226,900 units, accounting for 47% of the company's total sales from 33% in the same period last year, of which SUV models achieved a substantial year-on-year increase of 126.91%, and the situation of "strong business taking advantage of weakness" in the past has changed. In addition, in the field of electrification, the company's cumulative sales of pure electric passenger cars in the first 11 months reached 117,300 units, an increase of 175.80% year-on-year.

Although JacCo's passenger car business has recovered significantly, its competitiveness is still in the middle and lower reaches of the industry. According to the "Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co., Ltd. Non-public Offering Of Shares Application Document Feedback Reply Report" issued by Jianghuai Automobile to the CSRC, from 2018 to January to March 2021, the comprehensive gross profit margin of Jianghuai Automobile was below the industry average. Among them, the gross profit margin of the passenger car business is significantly lower than that of other similar listed companies, and even once it was negative. In this regard, Jianghuai Automobile had to say, "The company's brand power in the car and SUV segments is weak, and it cannot form a scale effect, and there is a big gap between the unit price of the company's passenger car sales and that of competing car companies." ”

According to the third quarter report of Jianghuai Automobile in 2021, due to factors such as rising raw material prices and lack of cores, the company achieved operating income of 8.344 billion yuan in the quarter, down 25.19% year-on-year; the net loss attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 283 million yuan, a decrease of 249.06% over the same period last year. It has become the most serious decline in performance among listed car companies.

Some insiders believe that the product technology of Jianghuai Automobile lacked sufficient competitiveness before, and through measures such as joint ventures with Volkswagen Group and OEM Weilai Automobile, it absorbed advanced production, technology, management and brand management experience, and fed back its own business growth, and indeed achieved good results. However, if JIANGHUAI wants to truly break through from the new round of great changes in the industrial chain, it needs to build and strengthen its own competitiveness in core areas in the process of open cooperation and absorbing the strengths of others. If you only stay on the manufacturing hotspot, and give the initiative of core technology research and development and channel network to others, I am afraid that I will be reduced to a foundry.