Mobile phone manufacturers build a car war: Xiaomi wants to build a whole car, "Hua O" only plays with cooperation, vivo does not mention a word

Written by | Tommy

Edit | Yang Bocheng

Caption | IC Photo

A car-making frenzy is spreading among mobile phone manufacturers.

Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, OPPO and Sony have announced that they have cut into the new energy vehicle track, or personally built cars, or deeply cultivated new energy vehicle technical support. Such a phenomenon even Xiaomi Group partner Lu Weibing can not understand, he asked on Weibo: Will all mobile phone manufacturers eventually build cars?

The reason behind the mobile phone manufacturers getting together to build cars is actually not difficult to understand.

Since the global smartphone shipments broke through the historical peak in 2017, the period of rapid growth of the smartphone industry has gone forever. According to data released by research institute Canalys, in the fourth quarter of 2021, global smartphone shipments reached 363 million units, a slight increase of only 1% over the same period in 2020, while in 2021, smartphone shipments were 1.35 billion units, an increase of 7% year-on-year.

In the Chinese market, the situation is also not optimistic. In the fourth quarter of 2021, China's smartphone shipments increased by 3% year-on-year to 86.6 million units, compared with 333 million units in 2021, a slight increase of only 1% from the same period in 2020 and a contraction of more than 10% from the same period in 2019.

"After several years of blindfolded and barbaric growth, the smartphone industry has become extremely involuted, and mobile phone manufacturers have difficulty gaining differentiated advantages in hardware." A smartphone industry insider told DoNews (ID: ilovedonews), "For mobile phone manufacturers, the smartphone business usually contributes most of the revenue, but in the current situation of the global epidemic and serious lack of core, mobile phone manufacturers have to take a long-term view and actively explore new growth curves." ”

Before the emergence of disruptive technologies, it has become the consensus of mobile phone manufacturers to stabilize the basic disk of the smartphone business by occupying the high-end market while looking for the next incremental market.

The rise of the new energy automobile industry has made mobile phone manufacturers shine. In a multi-dimensional and complex environment where economic recovery and market demand are parallel, new energy vehicles have become one of the most concerned tracks, and their popularity is still continuing.

According to the data disclosed by the Association, in December 2021, the sales of new energy passenger cars in the Chinese market reached 475,000 units, an increase of 128.8% year-on-year, while the sales of new energy passenger cars in 2021 were 2.989 million units, an increase of 169.1% year-on-year.

The high growth rate of new energy vehicles is not only in the Chinese market, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, said that the global sales of new energy passenger cars in the generalized sense reached 9.37 million units in 2021. Among them, the global sales of plug-in hybrid, pure electric, and fuel cell narrow new energy vehicles reached 6.23 million units, an increase of 118% year-on-year. In the whole year of 2021, China's new energy vehicles accounted for 53% of the global new energy vehicle market.

"The trend of high growth will continue in 2022", the Association predicts that in 2022, new energy passenger car sales will reach 5.5 million units, while the penetration rate will further rise to 25%. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers also gave roughly the same judgment, arguing that in 2022, sales of new energy vehicles will reach 5 million, an increase of 47% year-on-year.

The huge incremental market has also made the mood of the capital market high. According to incomplete statistics, in the whole year of 2021, there were 405 financing incidents in new energy vehicles and related industries, with a total financing amount of 277.151 billion yuan.

However, building a car is not an easy task. The typical characteristics of the automotive industry are long cycles, heavy investment and high barriers, and it is foreseeable that mobile phone manufacturers are about to reunite in the new energy vehicle arena and start a vicious battle.

Apple car manufacturing a wave of three twists, millet started two-line car manufacturing?

Apple has long targeted the field of new energy vehicles. In 2014, Apple launched the "Titan Plan", officially announced the construction of cars, and also spent a lot of money to hire executives from Ford, Mercedes-Benz and other car companies as its car project leaders. According to LinkedIn data, as of the beginning of 2020, nearly 40% of the more than 1,200 employees in Apple's automotive team have Tesla work backgrounds, and most of them have jumped directly from Tesla to Apple.

Although the Titan Project has been launched, the Apple auto team has experienced several disagreements, such as whether to build new energy vehicles or research self-driving technology. After several rounds of games, the "Titan Project" was finally suspended, and it was not until the end of 2020 that Apple announced the resumption of the car-making plan.

After restarting the car-making program, Apple has targeted the development of autonomous software systems. "Apple doesn't necessarily have to launch self-driving cars, and autonomous systems may be the basis for all machine learning products that can be used in many of the company's products and services in the future." We're passionate about integrating hardware, software, and services and discovering their intersections because that might work wonders. We are happy to have the main technologies associated with this. Apple CEO Tim Cook has emphasized.

However, Apple's car-making plan still seems to be not going well. In early 2022, Joe Bass, head of software engineering project management for Apple's automotive team, chose to resign seven years after joining Apple. With Bath's job-hopping, Apple's auto team lost a total of 7 executives, and the auto team executives that Apple formed a year ago have all left.

Despite this, the new energy vehicle business is still a city that Apple must conquer. Analysts at U.S. investment research firm Baird pointed out in the research report that the automotive market is a multi-trillion dollar market with huge long-term growth opportunities, and Apple's entry into the automotive industry is likely to usher in about $40 billion in growth.

In fact, Apple's strength should not be underestimated. According to incomplete statistics, from 2015 to 2021, Apple has obtained nearly 200 patented technologies related to automobiles, including autonomous driving technology, battery technology, wireless charging technology and so on. It is also worth mentioning that Apple's self-developed car chip is regarded as the biggest killer, it is reported that the car chip is composed of neural network processors, Apple's internal silicon engineering team as the design work, in addition, Apple's fully automated driving system research and development has also entered a critical stage.

People familiar with the matter said that Apple has completed most of the core work of the chip processor on the first generation of cars, and plans to release self-driving electric vehicles as soon as 2025.

Compared with Apple's car-making, Xiaomi's car-making plan has been clearly targeted and smooth from the beginning.

In March 2021, Xiaomi announced its intention to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company to be responsible for the smart electric vehicle business. The initial investment is 10 billion yuan, and it is expected to invest 10 billion US dollars in the next 10 years.

In November 2021, Xiaomi announced that Xiaomi Automobile's headquarters base, sales headquarters and R&D headquarters were officially settled in Beijing Economic Development Zone, and that it would build a vehicle plant with an annual output of 300,000 vehicles in two phases, of which the production capacity of the first and second phases was 150,000 units. In the first half of 2024, xiaomi's first model will roll off the production line and achieve mass production delivery.

But Xiaomi's layout for the new energy vehicle business is obviously more than that. According to 36Kr, Xiaomi has also assembled another car-making team, and Zhimi Technology, an ecological chain enterprise controlled by Xiaomi, has also joined the car-making army. Another person familiar with the matter said that Zhimi Technology's new energy vehicle business currently maintains independence from Xiaomi Automobile.

Only want to be an auxiliary: Huawei insists that it does not build cars, and OPPO focuses on the advantage areas

In April 2019, Xu Zhijun, Huawei's rotating chairman, officially released Huawei's automotive digital solution during the Shanghai Auto Show, integrating more than 30 years of EXPERIENCE in the ICT (information and communication technology) industry with more than 100 years of experience in the automotive industry through the Internet of Vehicles.

Xu Zhijun said that Huawei does not build cars, but focuses on ICT technology to help car companies build good cars. It is understood that based on this positioning, the cooperation mode between Huawei and car companies is mainly divided into Huawei Inside mode and Huawei smart selection mode. Since then, Huawei has reached strategic cooperation with Changan, GAC, BAIC and Xiaokang, officially opening the curtain on entering the new energy vehicle track.

Huawei has received a lot of attention after the official announcement of entering the new energy vehicle track, and in April 2021, the Cyrus SF5 jointly created by Huawei and Xiaokang was released. The Sf5 received 3,000 orders within two days of its launch, more than the total sales volume of Cyrus in the two years since its inception.

In December 2021, at the Huawei Winter Flagship New Product Conference, AITO Asked the M5 made its appearance. Compared with the Lix SF5, AITO Q&I M5 inherits more huawei genes - in addition to the Huawei DriveONE pure electric drive range extender platform, it also carries the HarmonyOS smart cockpit for the first time.

Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of consumer BG, and CEO of smart car solution BU, said at the winter flagship new product launch conference that aito M5 has a level comparable to that of million-level luxury cars, and the goal is to build the AITO brand into a global new energy brand TOP 3 within 5 years. This is not a small goal, but Huawei's confidence comes from more than 5,000 offline stores, "this is our huge advantage, covering every important city in China, which is Huawei's long-term strategy for the next 5-10 years." ”

It is roughly the same as Huawei's insistence that it does not build cars. At the 2019 OPPO Future Technology Conference, OPPO founder and CEO Chen Mingyong said, "If automakers can't build cars, OPPO has this strength, and will try in the future." Even if we build cars, we will focus on the areas where OPPO can do a good job. ”

Although OPPO has not yet officially announced the construction of cars, its layout in the new energy vehicle business has not been left behind. In May 2021, OPPO applied for the registration of the "OCAR" trademark, from the perspective of trademark composition, it is likely to refer to OPPO's new energy vehicle business, at the same time, there is news that OPPO has been in the industrial chain resources and talents to explore the research. According to incomplete statistics, the number of patents applied for by OPPO for automobiles has exceeded 60.

In February 2022, according to foreign media reports, OPPO will launch a pure electric vehicle in the Indian market, and the mass production plan of the car has been launched, and it is expected that the first model will be officially released at the end of 2023 or early 2024. All kinds of signs show that OPPO's car is already on the string.

The lesson of mobile phone manufacturers before making cars: the death of LeTV

In 2015, the "ecological mobile phone" LeTV mobile phone turned out to be born. A year later, LeTV's mobile phone shipments approached 20 million units, squeezing into the top ten of the national mobile phone market share. However, less than half a year after that, LeTV's mobile phone business has completely stagnated.

LeEco mobile phones quickly disappeared, a major reason pointed to the black hole of funds caused by LeEco cars. In 2014, Jia Yueting, founder and chairman of LeTV, vowed to shout the slogan of "building a super car to catch up with Tesla". However, with the rupture of the capital chain of LeTV Automobile and the full outbreak of the LeEco crisis, Jia Yueting resigned as chairman in July 2017 and went to the United States to develop, and LeEco Automobile also became Faraday Future.

On July 22, 2021, the questioned Faraday Future finally ushered in a highlight moment - successfully landing on the NASDAQ in the eyes of the outside world. After the listing, Faraday Future successfully raised $1 billion in funds, and Jia Yueting also announced that it would start delivering Faraday Future's first new electric model, the FF91, in July 2022.

However, less than half a year after the listing, Faraday Future encountered a series of thorny problems such as short selling. At an online investor networking session in December 2021, Faraday Future's financial position was disclosed: as of September 30, 2021, Faraday Future had an operating loss of approximately $143 million and a net loss of approximately $280 million, compared to an operating loss and net loss of $18 million and $33 million for the same period in 2020.

Not only that, since Faraday Future's inception, the cumulative losses arising from operating activities have been approximately US$2.8 billion, and will continue to generate serious operating losses in the future. Faraday Future CFO McBride said Faraday Future needs an additional $1.5 billion in additional funding and expects to achieve profitability and positive cash flow by 2024.

One problem that cannot be ignored is that car building is a very expensive business.

The contradiction between how to maintain the lack of hematopoietic ability and continuous investment is still a problem to be solved in front of all mobile phone manufacturers. Up to now, even the three new forces of "Li Xiaowei" are also mired in losses, and at the same time, the construction of factories, laying infrastructure, research and development of technology and patents, and development of markets still need huge funds as support.

In addition, it is worth pondering that even if it is not bad money, but in the face of a large number of strong competitors, mobile phone manufacturers should perhaps think clearly about where their core advantages are, and what is the basis for achieving cornering overtaking.