Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Yang Delin
On February 22, some media reported that Weilai Automobile intends to enter the mobile phone industry, and Yin Shuijun, the former president of Meitu Mobile Phone, will be responsible for Weilai's mobile phone business as the leader.
The news also said that Weilai's mobile phone project is in the initial stage of research, and is recruiting relevant business personnel. At present, the possibility of oem is basically ruled out, and the high probability is that they will do mobile phones, and mobile phones will have a lot of functions to interact with Weilai Automobile.
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On February 23, Times Finance did see on the third-party recruitment website that Weilai released a lot of positions related to the mobile phone business, covering wireless test engineers, application test engineers, communication test engineers, BSP test engineers, etc. Some positions also directly mentioned the requirements for mobile phones, Android tests, intelligent hardware terminals, mobile phones - car interconnection and other fields of experience, and the work location shows nanshan district of Shenzhen.
On the same day, Times Finance interviewed Weilai Automobile on this rumor, and the relevant person responded, "There is no information to disclose at present, and further information will be communicated with you." ”
Image source: Screenshot of a third-party recruitment website
As soon as the news of Weilai's mobile phone came out, it also triggered a heated discussion in public opinion. "It seems that crossover is now popular." "Why are they all 'not doing the right thing'?" "Car companies and mobile phone manufacturers are competing with each other for jobs." "Will there be a replacement version of the phone?" "There is a saying that now the mobile phone industry is very volume, does Weilai have a chance to win?"
According to CINNO Research data, in 2021, the top three sales in China's smartphone market are OPPO, vivo, and Apple, and the total sales volume of the three companies accounts for 54.8% of the domestic smartphone market share.
In fact, Weilai is not the first car company to be exposed to cross-border mobile phones. At the end of September last year, Hubei Xingji Times Technology Co., Ltd., founded by Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone and officially announced its entry into the field of mobile phones. It is understood that the total investment of the project is more than 10 billion yuan, positioning the high-end smart phone market.
Li Shufu said at that time that the mobile phone business is of great significance to the entire Geely automobile industry. The better development of mobile phones can bring better development of car machines, and the better development of car machines can promote the continuous improvement of the level of intelligent cockpits, which can help the competitiveness of smart electric vehicles to continue to improve.
In the industry's view, auto companies choose to build mobile phones more to form their own ecology. It is understood that the current mobile phone can link the intelligent car car networking, in this process will produce a large amount of data, if these data can be completely in the hands of car manufacturers, it can maximize the user stickiness, which is beneficial to the development of future car companies.
"It's a very good phenomenon. The cross-border of car companies, whether it is to build mobile phones or lay out the Internet industry, is a good business extension and development. On February 23, senior auto analyst Zeng Piquan told Times Finance. In his view, whether Weilai wants to make mobile phones or Xiaomi wants to build cars, the reasons are the same, and they all hope to lay out the entire intelligent ecological chain.
In addition, some insiders told Times Finance that at present, the car machine system of many car companies is not perfect, and the car companies can better adapt the mobile phone deepening system to the car machine, so that users have a better sense of car machine experience.
"Now consumers have higher and higher requirements for car intelligence, cars are no longer simply acting as a means of transportation, more inclined to intelligent terminals, users hope that their cars can be more and more convenient like mobile phones, which also has higher requirements for car manufacturers." Zeng Piquan said.
It is worth mentioning that before the cross-border mobile phone industry of car companies, mobile phone companies such as Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi and even OPPO have long been involved in the automotive field. In the industry's view, the competition and cooperation between mobile phone manufacturers and smart car manufacturers will be more frequent in the future, and the sharing of resources between the industry in the industrial chain, talents, and technology will also be further. However, cross-border is not an easy task, and the problems faced during the period such as industrial chain, research and development, and security will be challenges.