"Will not sell the mobile phone business, will still increase investment in the future", about the recent market rumors, Huawei's official response is a given tone.
Just earlier, it was reported that under pressure from many parties, Huawei will spin off the consumer business with smartphones as the core and further reduce investment in the terminal business, and the R&D team will also be partially transferred to the glory that has long been spun off.
▲ Source: Huawei China official Weibo
Suddenly, news began to appear that Huawei was going to sell its mobile phone business again.
However, although the official has come out to clarify at the first time, it is also a fact that Huawei's mobile phone business has suffered setbacks in recent years.
In this regard, many consumers have sighed: "Huawei, it is too difficult." ”
01
Selling your mobile phone business? Huawei: Fake
Recently, the news in the market about Huawei selling its mobile phone business can be described as very loud.
However, Huawei officials quickly refuted the rumors and claimed: "The sale of the mobile phone business is fake news, Huawei will continue to increase investment in the mobile phone business, and insist on building high-end brands." ”
Not only that, at the end of March, Huawei will also release the latest flagship mobile phone, not surprisingly, the P60 series that consumers are looking forward to will soon meet with you.
The reason for such rumors, in addition to the poor performance of the overall environment of the smartphone industry, also includes the sale of the Honor brand by Huawei.
▲ Source: Honor Mobile Official Weibo
As early as October 2020, news about Huawei's sale of the Honor business kept appearing, and it was also denied by insiders at the time. However, just over a month ago, Huawei sold the honor business and made it responsible for itself.
Of course, there is also a well-known reason, which is the suppression by the United States.
Affected by the US ban, Huawei mobile phones have long faced severe chip pressure. Because the inventory of self-developed chip Kirin has been exhausted, Huawei can only be forced to adopt Qualcomm's chips, but it cannot support the latest 5G network, which is also criticized by many consumers.
After all, it is a high-end flagship mobile phone, and the 4G chip that is still used at a high price seems to be somewhat out of step with the times.
However, in an interview in early 2021, Ren Zhengfei still firmly said: "Huawei may transfer 5G technology, but it will never sell the mobile phone business." ”
Although the attitude is firm, I believe that most people can feel the difficult situation of Huawei's mobile phone business, which can also be clearly seen from sales.
▲ Source: Huawei China official Weibo
The data shows that despite the blessing of Mate50, Huawei's share of the overall sales of the mobile phone market in 2022 still fell to 7.9%, which is still 10% in 2021.
It is no wonder that there is news of the sale of the mobile phone business, after all, the split of the consumer business can also reduce the burden on Huawei, so that there is more energy to develop other businesses.
02
Mobile phone business from 0 to 1
It must be admitted that Huawei is a company that deserves a thumbs up.
According to public information, Huawei's terminal business began in 1993. After 10 years of dormancy, Huawei officially established its mobile phone business department in 2003 and unveiled its first Android smartphone at the Mobile World Congress in Spain in 2009.
Data show that by 2011, Huawei's smartphone sales had exceeded 20 million units, but the products sold at that time were more customized by operators.
In order to further seize market share, Huawei released P series and Mate series mobile phones in the next two years. At that time, the representatives of the high-end market were Apple and Samsung.
▲ Source: Huawei terminal official Weibo
Despite this, under the pressure of giants, Huawei still achieved the first market share in China and the third in the world in 2015. In the following years, it continued to grow, even reaching the feat of 200 million units shipped annually in 2018.
At the time, almost everyone firmly believed that it was only a matter of time before Huawei surpassed Apple and Samsung, and it was in this year that the crisis began to appear.
The United States ordered sanctions against Huawei and officially included it in the entity list for blocking on May 15, 2019. Among them, cutting off the supply of chips can be said to have dealt a heavy blow to Huawei mobile phones, and even now this dilemma has not been significantly improved.
▲ Source: Sina Weibo
The result is the difficulty of Huawei's mobile phone business, as far as the entire high-end mobile phone market is almost swallowed by Apple, the low-end market due to the crazy involution of major brands, can bring profits are not ideal.
For example, there have been many media reports that although Apple's mobile phone sales are not the first all year round, the profits of the entire mobile phone market have been taken away by Apple by more than eighty percent, and the rest may only be enough for a number of brands to drink soup.
Imagine, if the United States, which has always advocated free markets, did not make various restrictions on Huawei, perhaps Apple would not be as beautiful as it is now.
03
Selling mobile phones is not as good as building cars?
Of course, knowing the constraints of the United States in the mobile phone business, Huawei is also actively developing many fields. For example, it has increased investment in the research and development of mobile phone imaging and audio technology, and attached importance to smart wearable devices, and has also joined the current market hot car manufacturing.
First of all, even if there is no United States behind the scenes, the trend of the entire mobile phone market hitting the ceiling is almost irreversible.
In fact, due to the increasing durability of mobile phones and the lack of innovation, consumers' desire to change mobile phones is no longer as high as before. The topic of #Why don't young people change their mobile phones#, has also repeatedly rushed to Weibo hot searches.
Seeing that the mobile phone business is becoming more and more difficult to do, Huawei has set its goal on the car in the terminal.
It's just that Huawei does not personally build factories to build cars, but lays out this track through cooperation.
▲ Source: Huawei China official Weibo
For example, as early as April 2021, Huawei announced a cooperation with Cialis, a brand of Xiaokang Group, and the emergence of Qianjie pushed Huawei Automotive to a new height. According to the data previously released by the official, the cumulative sales volume of the company in 2022 was 75,000 units, becoming the fastest growing new energy vehicle brand that year.
To achieve this achievement, Huawei's layout of offline channels is self-evident. Not only that, but also the dealer of Qianjie Auto said: "According to the transaction price of 300,000 yuan per car, every car sold has a profit of nearly 30,000 yuan, which is equivalent to selling 60 Huawei mobile phones." ”
It is worth noting that Huawei's actions in the car track are much more than that.
Just some time ago, a winning bid announcement by China Construction Sixth Bureau also exposed the cooperation between Huawei and Jianghuai Automobile. Huawei provides overall solutions for smart vehicles from design, R&D to marketing, while JAC is mainly responsible for assembly and production.
▲ Source: China Construction Group official website
At the same time, it was even revealed that many of Huawei's internal R&D personnel have also begun to transform into the automotive business.
Obviously, in the face of such a big cake, Huawei, which has already felt the cold, will not let go. Perhaps one day in the future, the automotive business will also be able to support half of Huawei's sky.