Wen | perseverance
Source| Bowang Finance
In 2020, the new energy automobile industry is on fire, and in 2021, the meta-universe is on fire, will the "car company + meta-universe" be more popular in 2022?
The reason why there is such a question is because the author recently paid attention to the fact that many car companies such as Ideal, Xiaopeng, Weilai, BYD, Great Wall, Nezha and so on have applied for the registration of relevant trademarks of meta-universe, and what is even more surprising is that SAIC Motor Group has applied for hundreds of meta-universe-related trademark categories in October 2021, including "Cheyuan Universe" and "Cheyuan Universe Z-UNIVERSE", etc., and the scope of use covers many fields such as automobile research and development, production, manufacturing and sales.
Car giants have entered the meta-universe, is it blindly pursued or is it the trend of the times?
01
What exactly is the "metacosm"?
There are many opinions about the concept of the "metacosm", first from a 1992 science fiction novel "Avalanche", but so far, its concept has not been widely recognized definition, Wikipedia gives the explanation is: through the virtual augmentation of physical reality, showing convergence and physical persistence characteristics of 3D virtual space, based on the future internet, with linked perception and sharing characteristics, Chen Xu, founder of MetaZ, a think tank for metacosm and future asset research, explains that the metacosm is a possible digital world in which people freely participate and live together in independent digital identities. But in general, the essence of the "metacosm" is a parallel universe, where, in addition to eating and sleeping need to be done in reality, everything else can be realized in the virtual world, similar to the lifestyle of the protagonist in the "Mind Player" movie, "Oasis" is the so-called "metaverse".
But this does not affect its popularity in the slightest, since Facebook announced the renaming of Meta Platforms and entered the metaverse, directly triggered the metaverse plate up and down, as long as the concept of metacosmology, to the company is a series of considerable gains such as rising social attention, soaring market value and doubling of the amount of financing.
Of course, behind the hot concept of meta-universe is inseparable from the favor of government departments and the capital investment of technology giants. In May 2021, the Ministry of Science, Technology, Information and Communications of the Republic of Korea, together with more than 200 local Korean enterprises and organizations such as Hyundai, SK Group, and LG Group, jointly established the "Meta-Universe Alliance", aiming to build a national augmented reality platform and provide public virtual services to the society in the future; in July, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan released the "Investigation Report on the Future Possibilities and Issues of the Virtual Space Industry", which summarized the urgent problems that need to be solved in the Japanese virtual space industry. In order to dominate the global virtual space industry, the South Korean Ministry of Finance released its 2022 budget in August, planning to spend $20 million on the development of meta-universe platforms. In addition, since August 2021, Japanese social giant GREE has announced that it will carry out meta-universe business, nvidia, a fabless-free IC semiconductor company that designs smart core chipsets, has appeared as a "digital stand-in" for more than ten seconds at the press conference, and Microsoft, the world's largest computer software provider, has announced enterprise meta-universe solutions at the Inspire Global Partner Conference.
In this context, various fields are competing for layout on the metaverseal track. According to Tianyan, in 2021, there have been more than 12,000 trademark applications in China with "meta-universes" in their names, and the international classification involves advertising sales, scientific instruments, website services, education and entertainment, etc. The "meta-universe" is like a "fragrant food" that instantly detonates the entire market, and all fields are eager to move, including car companies.
02
Preemptive registration of trademarks, including in the operation
According to the enterprise investigation, on February 9, 2022, Great Wall Motor (601633.SH/2333.HK) applied for the registration of the trademark "Great Wall Meta Universe", the international classification involves education and entertainment, and the current trademark status is "trademark application".
Source: Qi Cha Cha.
In January of the same year, Nezha Automobile's affiliated company, Hezhong New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., applied for the registration of a number of trademarks of "Nezha Yuan Universe", "United Yuan Universe" and "Which Iron Yuan Universe", and the international classification involved advertising sales, scientific instruments, means of transport, etc., and the current trademark status was "trademark application".
In December last year, BYD Co., Ltd. (002594. SZ) applied for the registration of the trademark "BYD Meta universe", internationally classified as a means of transport, and the current trademark status is "Trademark Pending".
In November last year, Xiaopeng Automobile applied for the registration of a number of "Xiaopeng Yuan Universe" trademarks, the international classification involves means of transport, machinery and equipment, scientific instruments, the current trademark status is "waiting for substantive examination", "trademark application"; in the same month, Weilai Automobile also applied for the registration of a number of "Wei Universe" trademarks, the international classification involves means of transport, website services, etc., the current trademark status is "waiting for substantive examination".
In October last year, SAIC Motor Group Co., Ltd. (600104. SH) applied for the registration of nearly 100 trademarks containing the words "Cheyuan Universe", the international classification involves advertising sales, social services, communication services, website services, etc., and the current trademark status is "awaiting substantive examination" and "trademark application".
Last September, Ideal Cars (2015. HK) applied for the registration of a number of "meta-universe" trademarks, the international classification includes fuel grease, metal materials, etc., and the current trademark status was changed to "pending refusal for review".
However, it is worth noting that most of the trademarks applied for by the above enterprises have little relevance to automobiles.
In addition to trademark squatting, some car companies have begun to "test the waters", or incorporate the concept of meta-universe into user operations, or launch meta-universe virtual world.
In August 2021, the "Rough Stone Valley" of Zhiji Automobile was officially launched on the "IM Zhiji" App. According to the official introduction, users can open up rough stones, exchange ideas, upgrade equipment, and evolve vehicles here. The core of "Rough Valley" is the 300 million rough stones linked to the 4.9% stake of Zhiji Automobile, 70% of which users can obtain through "Libo Mining", and "rough" can be used to exchange for various hardware or OTA services.
Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile, said, "The metacosm is undoubtedly a very important track in the future, and in the era of artificial intelligence, everyone is both a creator, a sharer, and a user. The car's future perception system will become stronger and stronger, the computing power will become stronger and stronger, and its ability to entangle real and virtual will become stronger and stronger. In the future, the real and virtual worlds must be blended, and through CSOP, users can embrace the dividends of the times with us. ”
For example, on the eve of the Munich Motor Show in September 2021, the BMW Group launched the meta-universe virtual world JOYTOPIA, without a user name and password, just need to log in to the joytopia.com, users can enter the world of JOYTOPIA, not only can enjoy the concerts of well-known British rock bands, but also through dancing and crowd surfing.
In response, Stefan Ponikva, Vice President of Brand Communication and Brand Experience at the BMW Group, said, "With JOYTOPIA, we have created our own metacosm, which shows that we are responding to customer demand for personalized experiences in the digital space. ”
03
Incremental demand or as root cause
But there is no doubt that the current development of the metaverse has great limitations, of which technical limitations are the biggest bottlenecks. In order to truly realize the metaverse, it is necessary to rely on core technologies such as 5G, VR, AR, AI, and blockchain, and at present, the corresponding underlying technology is still far from the needs of the metacosmity landing application, and then specifically implemented in the automotive field, the gap is even greater.
But why do car companies still want to squeeze their heads and want to enter the meta-universe?
The author believes that after the car company enters the meta-universe, it may be able to attract users by continuously designing and generating content, increase user stickiness, make them have preferences when purchasing automotive products, achieve the effect of expanding and strengthening the business model, and ultimately bring incremental demand.
According to Gartner's latest forecast report, by 2026, 25% of people will work, shop, study, socialize or play in the metaverse for at least one hour a day. At the same time, Marty Resnick, vice president of research at Gartner, said, "By moving from a digital business to a meta-universe business, businesses will be able to expand and strengthen their business models in unprecedented ways." By 2026, 30% of the world's organizations will have products and services for metacosmity. ”
Ma Tianyi, a researcher at Minsheng Securities, said, "Metacosm can deeply empower Industry 4.0, provide digital support for automobile manufacturing, and also bring new incremental demand in the field of display." With the vigorous development of new energy vehicles, automobile manufacturing has gradually moved towards platformization, modularization and intelligence. The main links of automobile manufacturing are expected to be empowered through the metacosm, simplifying the process and controlling the main links to improve efficiency. ”
In addition, Zhang Xiang, an automotive analyst and researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, also said, "The metacosm is a social space and a network tool. After the car company lays out in the meta-universe field, it can obtain users and fans, and in the future, these users and fans can also be converted into potential customers. On the other hand, the metacosm can also provide entertainment, business and office functions, which will also be closely connected with the car after the realization of autonomous driving in the future. Car companies can lay out in advance, and can take the meta-universe concept as a product highlight to attract consumers to buy cars, so as to achieve sales increases. Then the car company layout in advance, it can also be used as a product highlight to attract consumers to buy new cars and increase sales. ”
According to data from the China Automobile Association, in December 2021, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in mainland China reached 518,000 units and 531,000 units, up 120.0% and 113.9% year-on-year, respectively, and 6.7% and 11.1% month-on-month, respectively; in 2021, production and sales reached 3.545 million units and 3.521 million units, up 159.5% and 157.5% year-on-year, respectively, and are expected to maintain high growth in 2022.
Source: Huajin Securities Research Report.
It is worth noting that although we have experienced the transition from traditional vehicles to new energy vehicles, the current new energy vehicle industry is good, but the degree of congestion can be imagined, in order to expand the market, the force of the meta-universe or for the best choice, in the era of "first hand is strong, then the start suffers", the layout of the meta-universe has a certain forward-looking, but whether it can really achieve change still needs the market to give an answer, we wait and see.