Half a year after returning to China, Meng Wanzhou had a new position at Huawei.
On April 2, according to the latest management information disclosed on Huawei's official website, Meng Wanzhou, in addition to serving as Huawei's chief financial management and vice chairman, also entered the rotation camp of Huawei's rotating chairman. The Rotating Chairman is the supreme leader of Huawei during his current term of office, responsible for the meetings of the company's board of directors and the standing committee of the board of directors, and his rotation is 6 months.
With the addition of Meng Wanzhou, the members of the rotating chairman camp have risen to a total of 4 people, the other 3 are Xu Zhijun, Guo Ping and Hu Houkun. On April 1, Huawei's last rotating chairman had just completed his rotation and handed the baton to Hu Houkun. According to the current rotation rules, Meng Wanzhou is likely to officially take up the new position in October this year.
This means that Meng Wanzhou also has a key vote to determine Huawei's future direction.
Meng Wanzhou graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology with a master's degree, joined Huawei in 1993, and has served as Huawei's international accounting director, chief financial officer of Huawei Hong Kong company, and president of the accounting management department. Judging from the resume of Huawei in the past three decades, Meng Wanzhou is mainly responsible for the company and finance-related matters.
At the recent Huawei 2021 annual report press conference, Meng Wanzhou also attended the meeting as chief financial officer, and said that "Huawei's overall financial situation has undergone very good changes, and the resilience of the entire finance has continued to strengthen." ”
It is worth noting that since the mobile phone business was sanctioned by the United States on the chip, the smart car business has become a new business growth point that Huawei relies on, and has achieved very bright results in recent years.
According to the information disclosed in the financial report, Huawei's investment in smart car solutions has exceeded US$1 billion in 2021, and the R&D team has expanded to more than 5,000 people; Huawei has listed more than 30 smart car parts, including five major solutions including HarmonyOS intelligent cockpit, 4D imaging radar, and MDC810 autonomous driving computing platform.
In terms of partners, Huawei has successively carried out in-depth cooperation with CAR companies such as BAIC, Changan, GAC, and Xilisi through the HI model and the smart selection model. At present, the Q&I M5 equipped with Huawei's HarmonyOS smart cockpit has begun to be delivered, and the new HI version of the Polar Fox Alpha S and The Changan Avita 11 will also be delivered in 2022.
Although Huawei continues to increase investment in smart cars and the market performance has shown good feedback, Huawei still has no intention of building cars.
The promise not to build a car comes from Ren Zhengfei signing an internal EMT document from Huawei in November 2020. The document clarifies Huawei's role in the field of smart cars, "Huawei does not build complete vehicles, but focuses on ICT technology, helps car companies build good cars, and becomes a supplier of incremental components for intelligent and connected vehicles." ”
However, earlier this year, a video of Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's smart car solution BU, was exposed on the Internet complaining about partners at an internal meeting. A stone stirs up thousands of waves, and the contradictions between Huawei and its partners are also completely made public, which is likely to change the fuse of Huawei's bent on playing the role of supplier.
It should be noted that the internal documents of Huawei's commitment not to build cars are valid for a period of 3 years. In addition, the bottom of this document is also deliberately marked with the words "The person responsible for the management of this document is the rotating chairman of the board of directors, who is responsible for interpretation and maintenance." ”
According to the time of release of the document, Huawei may have the opportunity to choose again at the end of 2023, and this time point is roughly in line with Meng Wanzhou's tenure as rotating chairman.
At the press conference of Huawei's 2021 annual report, Meng Wanzhou said that "in the past four years, the world has changed a lot, and the motherland has also changed a lot", at the same time, she also said, "In the months after returning to China, I have been constantly studying hard, hoping to keep up with the pace of this society." As an outsider who has not participated in Huawei's development in recent years, Meng Wanzhou is likely to have unique insights and thoughts on Huawei's automotive business.
Will Meng Wanzhou after the "rebirth of Nirvana" become the next "X" factor in Huawei's intelligent car business?