Car companies cross-border into mobile phones, mobile phone factories cross-border into car manufacturing. Although the intentions of all parties in both directions are different, the trend of intelligent development between products is the same destination.
Compared with sales, Weilai Automobile seems to be in trouble. In February, NIO delivered a total of 6,131 vehicles, only 63.5% of the 9,652 deliveries in the previous month. At the same time, Weilai Automobile's sales are still inferior to Ideal Automobile, Nezha Automobile and Xiaopeng Automobile, ranking fourth in the new forces to build cars. In the reality of slowing sales growth, THE "total revenue of 420 billion yuan from 2020 to 2025" goal of "2020 to 2025" when Weilai Automobile obtained 7 billion yuan of financing earlier seems to have added some uncertainty. This made WEILAI Auto start to consider more aspects of the layout. On March 10, NIO was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange by way of introduction, which did not involve the issuance of new shares and the raising of funds, and NIO claimed that its purpose was to provide investors with alternative trading venues in order to achieve the purpose of expanding the investor base. In terms of attracting consumers, Weilai Automobile has recently separated from its main business and generated interest in expanding its mobile phone business.
Open the recruitment website and search for Weilai positions, it is easy to see that Weilai Automobile is actively expanding the mobile phone related team, from the wireless test engineer, communication test engineer, car-machine interconnection products and other recruitment job requirements, have put forward the need for mobile phones, Android testing and other development aspects. At the same time, it is also reported that Yin Shuijun, the former president of Meitu Mobile Phone, will be responsible for leading the mobile phone business of Weilai. This move is really surprising, but it makes sense. For Weilai Automobile, which has always been known for its services, breaking the boundaries of car and machine may become a new service highlight, and through the ability of mobile phone collaboration and interconnection, to better play the intelligent function of the car, it seems to be related to whether it can quickly obtain a new business growth level. At the same time, it is also foreseeable that mobile phones can provide more personalized content services, which is of great benefit to building a closed-loop product ecology and business and increasing user stickiness.
Of course, Weilai Automobile is not a "lone brave" of cross-border mobile phones, and the progress of Geely Automobile is obviously faster. In September 2021, Geely invested 10 billion yuan to establish Hubei Xingji Times Technology Co., Ltd. to show its "march" into the mobile phone industry, and then acquired mobile phone manufacturer Meizu, intending to create a mobile phone product that benchmarks Apple. Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group, once expressed his position on the entry into the field of mobile phones, "Mobile phones are not only rapid iteration of portable mobile terminals, but also application carriers for electronic product market verification and software innovation. "It is expected that some of the mobile phone innovations can be transferred to the car application to realize the close interaction between the car machine and mobile phone software technology."
However, from the current industrial layout of Geely in many fields, the intention to expand the mobile phone business is limited, and the motivation is still to pave the way for the intelligent transformation of automobiles. Li Dongsheng, founder of TCL, believes that Geely, Weilai and other car companies enter the mobile phone is caused by the competition in the development of the industry, and the mobile communication terminal is becoming the basis for intelligent Internet applications including smart cars, so it is logical for car companies to seek new opportunities in the mobile phone industry in the process of intelligent development.
A step away from the car machine and mobile phone
Before pondering the attractiveness of mobile phones to car companies, let's pay attention to the current car machine system on the car. Still taking Geely as an example, Geely began to deploy intelligently as early as 2011, especially after Geely's strategic investment in Yijiatong Technology Company in 2016, starting from the intelligent cockpit solution, it has successively launched geely Galaxy OS and GKUI geek intelligent ecosystem, and even cooperated with MediaTek to release the first self-led E series car chip. In terms of control ecology, the GKUI geek intelligence ecosystem can present commonly used applications in the form of UI on the desktop, and the controls will also push relevant information to assist users in operation, while adding more third-party development applications such as music, news, maps, etc., to provide a mobile-like experience. At present, the system has been installed on more than 20 models of Geely Automobile, with a cumulative user of more than one million. Interestingly, whether it is the GKUI geek intelligent ecosystem or other car-machine systems with similar functions, a series of new requirements have been put forward for the intelligent development of controls, including AI clouds, vehicles, smart homes, smart phones, smart watches and other ecological closed loops.
However, the demand belongs to the demand, returning to the actual situation, it is undeniable that this kind of car machine compared to the smart phone, the response speed is slow, the application software is less, the use experience is still only similar rather than the same, and there is still a gap between the processing chip and the mobile phone chip. On the one hand, this aspect is influenced by the concept of traditional car companies building hardware and software as a supplement. However, with the rise of new forces to build cars, the software intelligent connection ecology with the advantages of OTA upgrade iteration is becoming a new thinking for development, and the car machine system is gradually moving towards the hardware to expand the performance boundary, and the control is transitioning to the direction of software, and this concept is being reversed. On the other hand, because the on-board chip needs to meet the strict requirements of the car regulations, such as temperature adaptation range, vibration, electromagnetic interference, etc., the chip that meets the requirements of the vehicle regulation level has less pass rate, and the chip performance used by car companies generally lags behind the consumer electronics field. Therefore, in the face of the intelligent constraints of the car machine that still exists in the development process, it seems that it is a new choice for car companies to form or acquire mobile phone technology teams to obtain relevant patents and directly absorb the advantages of mobile phone systems instead of letting the car machine system develop slowly step by step.
Geely's acquisition of Meizu mobile phones is the embodiment of this line of thinking. According to meizu mobile phone public data, in terms of intellectual property rights, Meizu patent applications reached 3358, of which 2490 invention patents, including mBack interaction, one-size-fits-all antenna, super mCharge fast charging based on charge pump technology and other technologies. In 2019, Meizu released the integrated true non-porous all-wireless mobile phone Meizu zero, which once refreshed more than 100 patent achievements. In terms of R&D team, Meizu's Flyme team architecture still exists, whether it is its deep cultivation of the smartphone user experience for many years, or the design concept of simple style, it is still supported by a group of audiences. Based on the above two points, Meizu does have the potential to accelerate the progress of Geely's intelligent development in vehicles.
Of course, from a business point of view, in addition to the option of improving the car machine experience to feed back the main business, the cross-border mobile phone of car companies is also a business attempt to seek diversified development. After the failure of Meizu mobile phones in 2017, the performance began to decline, so that now in the face of many domestic manufacturers, whether it is channels, research and development or capital reserves into a comprehensive crisis. Geely sits on a huge automotive supply chain, chips, and financial strength, and indeed has the ability to pull Meizu mobile phones out of the predicament. At the same time, once the mobile phone business takes off, Geely can also gain more initiative in the wave of digital transformation and can achieve more ecological linkage. Li Shufu said, "Mobile phones can connect cars to the Internet, satellite Internet, create rich consumption scenarios, strengthen the ecosystem, cross-border to create a user ecological chain, and build a new moat for Geely." ”
Why "drop" the car
Car companies cross-border mobile phones, in turn, mobile phone manufacturers are also aware of their advantages in automobile intelligence. Consumer electronics products are more rapid than the iteration of automobiles, thanks to the developed and complete manufacturing supply chain, the mobile phone market has become the most competitive market in the world, and it is full of competitors with many brands at all levels and price points. The automotive industry is in a period of transition at the junction of fuel and new energy, and the OTA upgrade of traditional car companies and new car-making forces in the direction of intelligence has just emerged, but the software system technology represented by OTA has long been used in the mobile terminal of mobile phones. Therefore, to the automotive industry "drop", mobile phone manufacturers seem to have no shortage of opportunities.
After the official announcement of entering new energy vehicles, Xiaomi car manufacturing is proceeding in an orderly manner. In June 2021, Xiaomi and its funds participated in the investment of longitudinal technology, Hesai technology, geometry partners and other companies, and began to lay out in the fields of automatic driving systems, lidar and millimeter-wave radar. In August of the same year, Xiaomi spent another $77.37 million to acquire the autonomous driving company Shendong Technology, and obtained technical reserves such as perception, positioning, planning and control algorithms of the ADAS system. Subsequently, Xiaomi Auto Technology Co., Ltd. was established, with an initial investment of 10 billion yuan, the headquarters settled in Yizhuang, Beijing, and planned the construction target of 300,000 vehicles per year in two phases. 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.
Building a smart hardware ecosystem is Xiaomi's strength. Lei Jun once stated at the investor conference in October 2021: "Doing the automobile business is not for the 'limelight', Xiaomi has established a fully intelligent ecology from smart phones to smart homes and smart offices, and if it can be deeply integrated with electric vehicles, it will show great prospects for expansion." "At present, Xiaomi's fully intelligent ecology is tilting towards the automotive business, and the most intuitive performance is the technical transportation of the automotive business by the Xiaomi mobile phone department." Zeng Xuezhong, president of Xiaomi's mobile phone department, said that Xiaomi's mobile phone department is conducting multi-dimensional technical exchanges with the automotive team, covering batteries, images, software and supply chains. In 2022, the mobile phone department will also import a part of the software technology talent to the automotive team.
Huawei's "car building" is an enduring topic. On March 16, Huawei announced the launch of the AITO Q&A M5 4WD flagship model during the Spring Conference of the Whole House Smart and All-Scenario New Products. From "no car" to HUAWEI HiCar intelligent solution, from Hongmeng intelligent cockpit to Huawei and Xilix cooperative brand AITO, Huawei's participation in car manufacturing is getting deeper and deeper. Of course, according to the official statement, Huawei's goal is to help car companies build and sell good cars, and positioning is still a supplier role. However, it is undeniable that through years of deep ploughing in the ICT and mobile phone industries, Huawei does have very obvious technical advantages in 5G technology, on-board sensors, and car-machine systems.
Of course, cross-border investment opportunities and risks are the same, Xiaomi, Huawei and other mobile phone cross-border car pioneer Apple, its car-making plan is bumpy. As early as 2014, Apple CEO Tim Cook approved Apple's "Titan Plan" for electric vehicles, and by 2018, its self-driving test vehicles had reached 70. However, due to the contradictions and hesitations of the management to develop the automobile market, the core members continue to leave, the senior management team often changes blood, Apple's car-making project was not officially opened until 2019, the progress is slow, and Apple Car is still missing the beginning and end.
Car companies and mobile phone manufacturers cross-border in both directions, at least one point is similar to each other, and their industries are looking for new breakthroughs in transformation and upgrading. The intelligent development of the car is more and more diverse, the technical port is more concentrated, compared with the past, the car itself is more like a multi-functional intelligent terminal carrier. The mature collaborative interconnection ability of mobile phones makes the boundaries of intelligent expansion of automobiles more possibilities. However, with the integration of cars and mobile phones, manufacturers may become a new normal when they cross borders or cooperate with each other.
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