Huawei announced the 2021 performance forecast, revenue of about 634 billion yuan, down more than 250 billion yuan from the previous year, although it has set up five legions to expand a number of new businesses, but for now these new businesses are facing no small difficulties, but the automotive business should be the most promising to develop, and to promote the development of this business, independent car manufacturing will become the way it has to go.
It is not easy for Huawei to develop new business
Huawei has set up five major legions and has made a big splash in that event, but in the past year, the development of these new businesses has faced no small difficulties.
Huawei hopes to promote 5G applications and use its 5G technology advantages to obtain revenue in 5G applications, but after more than a year of promotion, the relevant departments have suspended the promotion of hundreds of 5G applications, one of the important applications of the suspension includes the remote surgery that was widely publicized before, showing that 5G application promotion is facing no small difficulties, resulting in such results being inseparable from the shortcomings of 5G technology itself.
For a long time, all aspects have emphasized the ultra-low latency of 5G, but this ultra-low latency only refers to the delay from the base station to the terminal side, and the delay from the base station to the server side is about tens of milliseconds, and the existence of this delay leads to 5G applications involving life safety such as automatic driving and remote surgery that need to be cautious.
The high cost of 5G has also caused difficulties in the promotion of various industries. Due to the ultra-high cost of 5G network construction, for more than two years, operators have only covered the 5G network in urban areas, because the coverage of 5G base stations built in the high-frequency 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz frequency bands is too small, and the energy consumption of 5G base stations is too high to cause huge difficulties for operators, and finally China Mobile and China Radio and Television jointly built 700MHz 5G to cover vast rural areas, and in the future, China Unicom and China Telecom may also rent this 700MHz 5G network, but 700MHz The latency and wireless data rate of 5G are different from the ultra-low latency and ultra-large bandwidth of 5G previously advertised.
Cost problems also affect the 5G industrial interconnection, the industry is clear for the manufacturing industry cost is a very important consideration, lower cost is one of the key factors for Chinese manufacturing to dominate the world, it is precisely because of the cost problem, the current China Mobile nearly 1 billion Internet of Things users are based on low-cost, low-power, low-speed 2G or LTE Cat1 technology.
Compared with the variables faced by the new industries that the five legions plan to enter, the automotive business has seen an improvement in the business and has brought a lot of revenue, and perhaps the automotive business will become the focus of Huawei's expansion this year.
2. Self-made cars or become the road that Huawei has to choose
In 2021, Huawei will cooperate with BAIC BJEV, Chongqing Xiaokang and Changan to build cars, but BAIC BJEV and Changan are not only cooperating with Huawei, they are cooperating with other autonomous driving companies, only Chongqing Xiaokang is fully cooperating with Huawei, and the cooperation between Chongqing Xiaokang and Huawei is gradually improving.
After the launch of the Xilis SF5 cooperated by Chongqing Xiaokang and Huawei, the sales volume of only a few hundred vehicles in the first few months was questioned, but then the sales gradually rose, reaching 2200 units in October 2021, and it was also close to the top 30 in the domestic new energy vehicle sales ranking, with annual sales of more than 7,000 vehicles, and the sales revenue of these more than 7,000 vehicles is estimated to bring more than 1.6 billion yuan in revenue.
Yu Chengdong, who is in charge of the automobile business, has shouted out 300,000 car sales this year, if this goal can be achieved, the sales revenue is even more up to 60 billion, although this can not fully make up for the loss of mobile phone business revenue, but it has been close to huawei's previous three major businesses, but the automobile business is cooperating with automobile companies, Huawei only shares from it, so the income that can be obtained is actually not high.
If Huawei achieves independent car manufacturing, the car business income is completely attributed to Huawei, then the automobile business will become Huawei's fourth largest source of income, and there are even optimistic expectations that Huawei's future domination of the new energy vehicle market will be expected to bring more than 600 billion yuan of revenue, and it is almost another Huawei.
The reason for forcing Huawei to choose independent car manufacturing is that many auto companies do not want to become vassals of technology companies, such as the soul of SAIC Motor, although other auto companies have not issued remarks that exclude technology companies, but most of them have silently developed their own autonomous driving technology, even if they cooperate with technology companies, they also emphasize the leading role; in addition, Baidu, the leader of domestic autonomous driving technology, has established a joint venture with Geely to build cars. Apple's negotiations and cooperation with many auto companies have failed, and it is likely that it will eventually build its own car or be manufactured by long-term partner Foxconn.
Huawei itself already has almost all of its automotive technology, and its AITO M5 released at the end of 2021 covers almost all aspects of the car in addition to manufacturing, so some people joke that today's Huawei cars are only close to building their own car factories.
If Huawei can really achieve annual sales of more than 300,000 cars in the future, then it is already a strong enterprise in the domestic automotive industry, and BYD, which became famous last year, sold only more than 400,000 cars a year, and it is also necessary to have its own car factory to support such a large-scale car sales.
From all aspects, Huawei's independent car manufacturing may be the choice that must be made in the end, after all, the time is not waiting, and controlling the automobile manufacturing can better promote its development planning and accelerate the development of the business to quickly make up for the loss of the mobile phone business.