In three years, Huawei has announced a total of 8 times that it will not build cars. It is said that within Huawei, the principle of not building cars has been emphasized far more than 8 times.
In a Huawei sales store in Beijing's Chaoyang District, salespeople talked about the new high-end brand AITO jointly launched by Huawei and Xilisi, but they were extremely excited, "Pure electric drive range extender platform, Harmony OS intelligent cockpit, Huawei's self-developed car map Petal Maps..."
Do not build cars, the selling point of new cars is the concept of "Huawei", behind the "cross-border car manufacturing" boom, what role does Huawei play?
"Our goal is to create a great product and experience for smart cars for our partners who work with us in depth." A few days ago, Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of consumer BG, and CEO of Huawei's intelligent car solution BU, said that in the automotive field, Huawei, which does not build cars, plays the role of "assister".
Image source: Courtesy of the enterprise
In the era of intelligent electric vehicles, Huawei positions itself as a supplier of incremental parts for smart cars, and its cooperation with car companies can be roughly divided into three modes: parts supply, providing Huawei HI (Huawei Inside) full-stack intelligent car solutions (hereinafter referred to as "Huawei HI"), and Huawei smart choice to help car companies build and sell cars.
Among them, in the Huawei HI model, the product definition, technology, and component selection of the vehicle are dominated by the car company, and Huawei does not participate much. Under the Huawei Smart Selection model, Huawei participates in product definition, styling design, marketing, user experience and other links, and cooperates more deeply with car companies.
"No matter how well our parts are done, if the products of the depot cannot be sold, it will not be possible to achieve commercial realization." Therefore, we empower car companies to do a good job in product design, user experience, and product quality control, so that products can sell well. Only when our smart auto parts can we sell well and realize the commercial realization of the autobu parts business. Yu Chengdong elaborated on the different models of cooperation with car companies.
Huawei and Xilix have in-depth cooperation with the AITO brand
The cooperation between Xiaokang and Huawei belongs to huawei's smart selection model. In April 2021, Huawei's Smart Choice Cyrus SF5, which huawei cooperated with the Cyrus brand under Xiaokang Co., Ltd., was officially unveiled at the Shanghai International Auto Show, which is equipped with Huawei's DriveONE three-in-one electric drive system and other components. In December 2021, the cooperation between the two sides was further deepened, and a new high-end smart brand AITO was launched.
At present, the first model of the AITO brand, the Q&E M5, has been launched and will be available for pre-order from December 23, 2021, and is expected to be delivered in February 2022. In addition, according to Yu Chengdong, the AITO brand will also launch a pure electric version of the Q&E M5 this year, and is expected to release a medium-sized SUV later this year.
It is understood that the vehicle research and development and vehicle manufacturing of the M5 are responsible for Xilix, and Huawei empowers the car in terms of product styling, interior and exterior design, and brand marketing. "For example, in terms of design, I myself and the team have been deeply involved in the details of the new car's styling design, materials, etc., and our goal is to make this car better reflect the design concepts of simplicity, high-end, and purity." Yu Chengdong said.
Yu Chengdong believes that the cooperation between Huawei and Xilis is complementary. "Well-off Cyrus has accumulated rich experience in vehicle manufacturing in the past ten years, especially in the research and development of pure electric drive range extender technology. In the past ten years, Huawei has accumulated rich experience in brand operation, industrial design, quality management, and user experience design in terminal BG, and has obvious advantages in vehicle components, intelligence, software, and hardware. Yu Chengdong said.
It is understood that in the AITO brand, Huawei's participation and empowerment are far more than the previous bicycle projects. Prior to this, the Xilis Huawei Smart SF5 only used Huawei electric drive system, HUAWEI SOUND and HUAWEI HiCar and other functions, while the Q&C M5 was the first time that the Harmony OS smart cockpit was "on the bus".
In Huawei's strategic planning, smart cars are an important terminal product, and it is also a highland that Harmony OS needs to quickly occupy.
"This will allow our smart mobility ecosystem to grow and improve the user experience of our other end products." For example, the Harmony OS smart cockpit can achieve linkage with mobile phones to form a strong ecosystem. In terms of ecological development, mobile phones and watches can control the car, and the navigation and video phones on the car can be seamlessly connected with mobile phones and tablets, and the account number is open and the experience is open. Yu Chengdong said.
Some people believe that in the AITO brand, Huawei's deep participation may make Xilis a foundry for Huawei's "car manufacturing". On December 31, 2021, in response to the rumor that "Xilis is Huawei's car foundry", Xiaokang responded that Xilis under Xiaokang is a long-term partner of Huawei, not a foundry. Yu Chengdong said that the AITO brand is deeply cooperated and discussed by both sides.
"The dominance of cooperation does not depend on us, but on what form car companies want to cooperate with us." Yu Chengdong said, "Xiaokang Xilis is very willing to cooperate, willing to work with us to design and develop, but also to brand marketing, channels, retail to us to do." We also have good cooperation with other car companies, and when we have common needs, we will also carry out various forms of cooperation. ”
This year, we will target 300,000 vehicles per year
Under huawei's smart selection model, Huawei's cooperation with car companies also involves the field of automobile sales. Around April 2021, Huawei's decision-making level bound the consumer business and the smart car business, intending to make this combination play a 1+1>2 effect, and Huawei's smart selection of the Salis SF5 and the Q&I M5 also entered Huawei's channels for sale.
For helping car companies sell cars, Yu Chengdong said: "Huawei has a strong retail system, and if it is not used to sell other products, it will be wasted. ”
In addition, Huawei is also selling cars to make up for the lack of mobile phone sales. On April 20, 2021, Huawei officially announced the car sales plan at the flagship store on Nanjing East Road in Shanghai, and Yu Chengdong explained at the time: "Huawei's high-frequency, just-needed, and massive product business has encountered huge difficulties, and the sales of smart electric vehicles are not as large as mobile phones, but the unit price is high, which can make up for the lack of sales of mobile phones." ”
"On the other hand, Huawei uses a strong retail system to help car manufacturers sell cars and help partners achieve commercial success, which will also drive large-scale sales of OUR CAR BU parts." Yu Chengdong said that in the future, AITO's flagship model will be equipped with the latest technology of Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution BU.
Image source: Zhu Wanping photo
For car companies, Yu Chengdong believes that the current retail format has become a retail network centered on shopping malls and online, if car companies completely start from scratch to build this retail system will consume a lot of manpower and material resources, and with the help of Huawei's existing retail system, you can save a lot of costs in laying retail channel networks.
Xilis related people also said: "Huawei from helping car companies build good cars, to helping enterprises sell good cars, through the high-end brand operation, marketing experience and sales network accumulated in the consumer electronics industry, in-depth cooperation with Xilis channels, empowering each other." Huawei Experience Stores have incomparable advantages in site selection, scale, and quantity. ”
When talking about Huawei's sales target for selling cars, Yu Chengdong said: "We plan to sell cars in 1,000 stores by the end of this year, assuming that each store can sell 30 cars per month, then our challenge goal is to reach 30,000 vehicles per month, so that the annual sales of the car companies we cooperate with will be 100 billion yuan." At the same time, we hope to rely on the three AITO models to challenge the sales target of 300,000 units this year, and next year we hope to challenge the sales target of one million vehicles. ”
"Last year we launched the very competitive AITO M5, plus two cars that will be launched this year, which can challenge the sales target of 300,000 vehicles based on our current brand marketing and retail channel capabilities. At the same time, we also make the experience of satisfying consumers the highest priority. Yu Chengdong said that at present, the M5 is still in the stage of capacity climbing, the problem of supply should not be underestimated, and the annual sales of 300,000 vehicles is also challenging.
Text/Li Nian