The smartphone industry and the automotive industry have always had a lot of linkage, but in the past year, the linkage has been upgraded to cross-border. First Xiaomi, which makes mobile phones, wants to build cars, and then Geely, which makes cars, wants to make mobile phones. In addition, although Huawei does not build cars, it also cooperates with car companies to "help" build cars. There is also a representative of the new car-making force Weilai, which just yesterday announced that it was going to enter the field of mobile phones.
Can such a cross-border be achieved? Let's first see what manufacturers who want to cross-border car and mobile phones have done.
Mobile phone manufacturers build cars
- Xiaomi
Lei Jun, founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi, personally announced that he will enter the automotive industry, which was the most exciting news at last year's Xiaomi conference.
Around 2014, when the Internet car was rising, there were rumors in the industry that Xiaomi would join it, and Lei Jun also went to the United States to find Musk to learn from it. However, for the construction of cars, Xiaomi is firmly denied. With the passage of time, Xiaomi Hong Kong stocks have been listed, and the business has been expanding. On March 30, 2021, Xiaomi Group issued an announcement confirming that there is indeed a car building.
Since the high-profile announcement of car manufacturing, Xiaomi has not been idle, Lei Jun has visited Changan, SAIC, Dongfeng, GAC, SAIC-GM-Wuling, Great Wall and other car companies, and also discussed with netizens what models to build, how to price and so on. Not surprisingly, the most popular option is definitely the cheapest one. However, Lei Jun said that Xiaomi's first car "is either a sedan or an SUV, and the price range is 100,000-300,000 yuan." ”
Lei Jun .gif "This is definitely troublemaker"
Is Wuling going to become the enemy of Xiaomi Car for life?
Graph source network
Of course, Xiaomi's car is definitely aimed at the future, that is, automatic driving. In June 2021, Xiaomi and its funds led/participated in the investment of Longitudinal Technology, Hesai Technology, Geometry Partners and other companies, involved in the field of autonomous driving systems, lidar, millimeter wave radar. In August, Xiaomi spent 500 million yuan to acquire the automatic driving company DeepMotion Technology, and the layout of the automatic driving system gradually took shape.
Xiaomi Automobile Co., Ltd. was established on September 1, Xiaomi Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. was established on November 18, during which the Xiaomi Automobile Headquarters Base in Yizhuang, Beijing was also determined, and Xiaomi Car Manufacturing was carried out in an orderly manner. Since the announcement of the car, Xiaomi's lace news has also been many, the Great Wall, Jianghuai and even Evergrande have passed out "gossip" with Xiaomi Car.
This at least proves that Xiaomi's car is really not a joke. Lei Jun said that the progress of Xiaomi car manufacturing far exceeded his expectations, and it is expected that Xiaomi car will be officially mass-produced in the first half of 2024.
- Apple
Not to mention the brand impression, on the financial resources and research and development strength alone, Apple is definitely throwing off Xiaomi a few dimensions. Trillion-level market value, rich and enemy of the country's cash reserves, Apple has not publicly said that it wants to build cars, but everyone will feel that Apple must be building cars.
According to legend, as early as the time of Jobs, Apple intended to build cars. In 2008, Tesla launched its first model, the Roadster, which piqued Jobs's interest in getting involved in the automotive space. At that time, the original iPhone had just appeared, and the design and manufacture of the iPad was also carried out in secret, and Jobs focused on these two "world-changing" products.
In 2014, Cook, who succeeded Jobs as CEO, approved Apple's electric car plan, called "Project Titan", and later, Apple's self-driving test vehicles have been on the road, reaching 70 by 2018, the third most approved for autonomous driving road tests in California, after GM's Cruise and Google's brother company Waymo.
In terms of talent, at the beginning of Apple's car project, about 1,000 experts and engineers participated in it, and later expanded to 5,000 people. To this end, Apple has recruited a number of expert executives from various major factories, including Dan Dodge, co-founder of the BlackBerry QNX system, Manfred Harrer, vice president of Porsche chassis, and invested in the acquisition of self-driving car startup Drive.ai.
Although Apple remains silent about building cars, the news of the sky can never be hidden. As Tesla CEO Musk put it, "If you hire more than 1,000 engineers to do something, it's hard to hide." "In the major news media, the rumors of Apple's car-making plan have never stopped, and the release time is also various: some say 2019, some say 2020, and later say 2024, the strongest Apple analyst on the surface, Guo Mingxi, is not sure, thinking that it will be between 2025 and 2027 or even later...
Apple: You say yes
From the plan to the present, seven or eight years have passed since Apple built cars, and Apple Car is still only alive in legends, which shows the difficulty of cross-border car manufacturing. So what can cross-border mobile phones do?
The depot makes mobile phones
In 2021, Xiaomi announced that it will build cars, Huawei will help car companies build cars, and many mobile phone manufacturers in our cognition have a relationship with car manufacturing, and it seems natural to come to several car manufacturers to make mobile phones?
The first is Geely. On September 26, 2021, Hubei Xingji Times Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Geely, was established, and two days later, Li Shufu, founder of Geely Group, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, and the cooperation project was "high-end smart phone project". Geely's mobile phone seems to be a knocking stone.
This stepping stone may be Meizu. Just last month, there was news in the industry that Star Era was in contact with mobile phone manufacturer "Meizu" to negotiate the acquisition. Although the two sides have not formally recognized it, it is a win-win deal.
Immediately after Geely, Weilai has also recently reported that it is going to enter the mobile phone industry. Nio's response to this is that the project is in the initial stage of research and has no information to disclose.
Although it has not yet been confirmed, Weilai's mobile phone is basically an arrow on the string. It is said that Yin Shuijun, the former president of Meitu Mobile Phone, has joined Weilai, responsible for Weilai's mobile phone business, and recruited BSP engineers, communication test engineers, imaging chip design engineers, etc. It is probably an official announcement.
Who can make it?
In terms of difficulty coefficient, it is easier for car manufacturers to make mobile phones than mobile phone manufacturers to build cars. The automobile industry is heavily invested, especially the big-name traditional car companies, with strong capital and strong production capacity, which obviously have more advantages. For example, another well-known car company, BYD, provides foundry services for many mobile phone manufacturers, including Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, etc. Youdao is "the world knows Foxconn, no one knows me BYD".
In addition, the mobile phone manufacturing link can also be handed over to ODM, which is commonly known as an outsourcing company. According to Counterpoint Resarch data, 36% of the smartphones sold worldwide in the first half of 2021 were outsourced, especially mid-range and below models, which is why some mobile phone brands are different, and it is somewhat familiar to look at.
Therefore, for car companies, hardware manufacturing is not a big problem, and the real focus is on software systems and content ecology. This is also likely to be the main reason why Geely wants to buy Meizu. Another problem is that China's mobile phone market is becoming increasingly saturated, and it is not easy to grab a bowl of rice here.
But in general, the car factory is more dominant, and it is not good to buy a car and send a mobile phone.
On the contrary, mobile phone manufacturers build cars, and the difficulty coefficient is much greater. The core advantage of mobile phone manufacturers comes from the software system, and Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi all choose to focus on this. In addition, manufacturers have to form an automotive team to contact the wider automotive industry chain, which is a marathon. As strong as Apple, it is not easy to build a fully controlled automobile business from scratch, and the road is long.
Finally, a famous little story. Apple had a shortcut to build a car, that is, to buy Tesla, when Tesla's market value was not the current fraction. Cook and Musk, the CEOs of both companies, also spoke on the phone about the matter.
Musk said, "I'm going to be CEO." Cook agreed. But, Musk emphasized, "I mean Apple CEO. “
Cookruya replied with ease, you. ”
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