"Huawei is still a novice and may make a lot of mistakes."
A month after announcing the 2021 financial report, Huawei set the direction of the company in 2022. At the same time, the "small target" of Huawei's 300,000 vehicles was re-judged.
On April 26, at the 19th Huawei Global Analyst Conference, Hu Houkun, Huawei's rotating chairman, said that the target of 300,000 car sales is difficult to achieve. But even if this goal cannot be achieved, Huawei hopes that the outside world will have more tolerance and understanding.
The goal of selling more than 300,000 smart cars in 2022 actually stems from The Haikou boasted by Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's smart car solution BU, last year. This goal once became the talk of the industry, refreshing the outside world's perception of Huawei's automotive ambitions. Because as a novice in the automotive industry, Yu Chengdong set a "small target" of 300,000 vehicles, which exceeded the total delivery volume of the new force Sanjie "Wei Xiaoli" in 2021.
However, before Hu Houkun confessed, Yu Chengdong had already changed his mouth. On April 18, Yu Chengdong admitted in an interview that "it is difficult to achieve the sales target of 300,000 vehicles this year." In the absence of cores in global cars, it is impossible to achieve 300,000 vehicles. Because the supply is not available. We are in our first year, and if we can build one or two hundred thousand units, it is already a miracle. ”
300,000 vehicles a year, "bragging" mistakes?
The dilemma brought about by the industry supply chain is the reason why Hu Houkun hopes to be tolerated and understood by the outside world. And the "error" in his words should refer to the error of prejudgment.
For example, Huawei has previously overestimated the production capacity of the Xilis factory and also overestimated the ability of the market to pay.
As a model built by Huawei's in-depth cooperation, the AITO M5 is produced from the Cyrus Chongqing Liangjiang Intelligent Factory. According to the information previously disclosed by Xilis to the outside world, the annual production capacity of its Liangjiang Intelligent Factory is 100,000 units, which is far less than huawei's target of 300,000 vehicles.
Or out of pressure, in January this year, the Xilis Chongqing Liangjiang plant also held a M5 production guarantee pledge conference, in order to strive to achieve the goal of producing 10,000 new cars in the first quarter, to complete the delivery of 5,000 units in March.
However, according to the production and sales data released by Xiaokang Shares, from January to March this year, the production and sales volume of Xilisi were 6808 and 5044 vehicles, respectively. Among them, Xilis delivered a total of 3,160 new cars in March; AITO M5 was officially delivered in batches on March 5, with sales of 3,045 units in March this year. Production and sales volumes did not meet expectations.
Furthermore, there is a lack of anticipation of the industry's supply chain. As Yu Chengdong himself said, Huawei's intelligent car business is also currently suffering from the dilemma of "lack of core".
On April 15, Yu Chengdong posted in the WeChat circle of friends that if Shanghai and other places cannot resume work and production in time, all science and technology and industrial industries involving Shanghai's supply chain will be completely stopped after May, especially the automobile industry.
AITO auto officials then issued an announcement on April 20, saying that due to the increase in the cost of raw materials upstream of the car, the price of the M5 rear-drive standard version model was adjusted to 259,800 yuan, and the price increased by 10,000 yuan.
Despite facing chip outages, Hu said Huawei has no plans to build its own chip factory. Wang Tao, managing director of Huawei and director of the ICT Infrastructure Business Management Committee, explained that the industrial chain of chips is very long, including design, manufacturing, packaging, etc., and there are many links in manufacturing, which cannot be solved by any company, and the upstream and downstream of the entire industry chain need to work together.
At present, China and many overseas countries and regions have increased investment in the semiconductor manufacturing chain, and Huawei believes that the shortage of chip supply may be solved in the next few years, so that Huawei's chip problem can also be solved.
In the face of difficulties, how to survive with quality?
Huawei's difficulties this year have not only not decreased compared with the past, but also brought more difficulties due to changes in the external environment.
Hu Houkun expressed the current situation of Huawei more thoroughly: "We are now facing various external difficulties, geopolitical conflicts, exchange rate fluctuations, global epidemics, commodity price increases, global inflation, these are all visible and invisible traps that we may encounter in business activities." ”
It is precisely because of the many difficulties facing at present that Hu Houkun believes that in order to survive, it is necessary to operate steadily and pay attention to the quality of transactions.
Hu Houkun explained "quality survival" in three dimensions, one is to ensure that the products, solutions and services provided to customers are competitive and sustainable; the second is that Huawei's business remains stable, and some low-quality projects will be abandoned, while the business portfolio is more diversified than in the past; and the third is to continue to invest in future innovation.
Perhaps in response to the "quality" plan, on April 25, Huawei launched a new round of "genius youth" recruitment program. According to the recruitment information, Huawei does not limit the academic qualifications and schools of "talented teenagers" candidates, but requires special achievements in mathematics, computers, physics, materials, chips, intelligent manufacturing, chemistry and other related fields and aspires to become a technology leader.
In the recruitment poster, the figure of smart cars also appeared. Combined with recruitment needs and Huawei's innovation and continuous investment plan, there is a high probability that some talented teenagers will invest in the work of Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution BU in the future.
For the automotive business with high hopes, Hu Houkun also said at the conference that Huawei now has a clearer understanding of the trend of the intelligent automotive industry.
"In the process of the transformation of the automotive industry to electrification, intelligence, networking, and sharing, power electronics technology is definitely a key enabling technology, and Huawei has accumulated technology in the past three decades, such as networking, computing, operating systems, cloud, power electronics, etc., whether it is ict technology or power electronics technology."
Therefore, Huawei's own positioning is becoming more and more clear, that is, as a supplier of intelligent automotive components, it is open to cooperate with upstream and downstream partners in the industrial chain.
Huawei has made it clear that there will also be new smart cars released this year, whether it is a model of Smart Select mode or Huawei Inside (HI) mode.
Huawei has identified four partners at present, namely BAIC Jihu, GAC Aean, Changan Avita and Jinkang Cyrus. Among them, the first three use the Huawei Inside model, and the Xilis family adopts the smart selection mode.
Huawei Inside mode is a full-stack intelligent vehicle solution developed by Huawei, including a series of components such as intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving, and lidar; the smart selection mode means that Huawei is deeply involved in product definition and vehicle design, and new cars can directly enter Huawei's online and offline channel sales.
According to Hu Houkun, in Huawei's two foreign cooperation routes, there will be "new people" and new cars this year.
In terms of "newcomers", Huawei has not revealed more information at present. In terms of new cars, AITO's second model, the new Q&I M7, has shown its true appearance in the latest declaration and publicity, and the new car is positioned as a medium and large SUV, which is expected to be officially listed within the year.
If it goes well, the new car will also be part of the challenge to the annual sales target of 300,000 units. Although this goal is already difficult in the first step, Huawei, which has turned on acceleration mode, obviously will not choose to slow down.