A Weibo, a poster, 10,000 reservations, this is Huawei's appeal.
On April 23, the new M5 was officially released, with a price of 249,800 to 279,800 yuan.
Some institutions said that with just a warm-up Weibo + an official poster, the new M5 quickly won 10,000 reservations within 12 hours, and Huawei's appeal and new product popularity far exceeded market expectations.
This appeal is also reflected in the real sales level. Since entering 2024, as of April 22, the cumulative sales of Hongmeng Zhixing have reached 105,000 units, a year-on-year increase of nearly 800%, and it has undoubtedly become the No. 1 sales volume of new forces in the Chinese market.
According to authoritative sources, the new M5 is likely to become the next hit after the new M7 and M9, and so far, the three models of the world will officially achieve an unprecedented "all models are explosive", and the market share is about to usher in the third round of growth.
What is more noteworthy for the industry is that with Huawei's in-depth empowerment, Wenjie's products are showing an iterative upgrade speed that far exceeds the industry average, and the competitiveness of its products continues to maintain a high level. This will be a key element in the knockout round of the auto market and finally stand out.
The ability to iterate quickly and change the rules of the industry
In the Chinese auto market, where there are many new cars, the M5 can be regarded as an old best-selling car. In December 2021, at Huawei's winter new product launch conference, the M5 was unveiled for the first time, and in the following months, the monthly sales of the M5 quickly exceeded 10,000, becoming one of the few new car-making products that could steadily exceed 10,000 monthly sales at that time.
In April 2023, with the empowerment of Huawei, the M5 launched the intelligent driving version of the model, which became one of the few products in the market segment with intelligent driving assistance in urban areas, and made this function enter the market segment below 300,000 yuan for the first time. In the following months, the M5 continued to be OTA, and continued to upgrade in many fields such as intelligent driving, safety, and intelligent cabin.
Today, this ability to iterate truly breaks the rules of the game and the way the traditional automotive industry plays.
In the era of fuel vehicles, the core functions are almost the same as the life cycle of the product, and most fuel vehicle products may only be upgraded and iterated when the core functions are replaced, and this cycle usually takes 5 years or more. In the era of new energy vehicles, OTA has gradually become the standard configuration of smart electric vehicles, but it should be pointed out that due to the influence of R&D capabilities and technology accumulation, despite having OTA capabilities, a considerable number of new energy vehicle companies have not been able to achieve rapid iteration and upgrading of core functions, and some functions have been questioned as "futures" by public opinion and users.
Thanks to Huawei's strong empowerment, the new M7 and M5 products have shown rapid iteration and progress.
Taking the new M5 as an example, compared with the current model, the car has once again achieved all-round upgrades and renewals in less than a year. In addition to the exterior upgrade and the addition of the RS model, the new M5 is equipped with the same star ring diffuser as the M9, and the new Shuyun seat greatly improves the ride comfort.
And more upgrades are coming in on the smart side. With Huawei's empowerment, the new M5 has achieved the standard configuration of all high-end intelligent driving systems, and its HUAWEI ADS 2.0 high-end intelligent driving system has now realized that it can be opened nationwide, and it is in the first echelon in the field of intelligent driving in China.
And thanks to the organic combination of Huawei's intelligence and safety, the car has added Huawei's first all-directional collision avoidance system, and the system capability is also at the industry-leading level. Its forward AEB effective range is upgraded to 120km/h, and can identify special-shaped obstacles, the effective range of lateral collision avoidance is 40-130km/h, and the effective range of backward collision avoidance is 1-60km/h, and can realize low-speed active obstacle avoidance.
From its first release in 2021 to 2024, the new M5 will be far ahead in a number of configurations and capabilities, so that the product will always be in a continuous and rapid upgrade channel, and continue to provide users with products with leading technology and experience, which is an important reason why the current Wenjie brand can win the sales championship of new forces.
Certainty and scarcity of the Chinese for the last cycle
Behind the continuous and rapid iteration of the new M5 and M7, Huawei's strong technical strength and brand potential are inseparable.
At present, the automotive revolution has entered the deep water area of intelligence, and the importance of intelligent technology for automobiles is increasing, which requires enterprises to have more powerful technical strength as support, and enterprises also need to deeply understand the core demands of end users for automotive intelligence, so as to be targeted.
According to the data of the Passenger Car Association, from April 1 to 14 this year, the retail sales of new energy vehicles were 260,000 (516,000 in the passenger car market), accounting for 50.39%, officially exceeding 50%. In the book "Diffusion of Innovation", American scholar Everett Rogers proposed an innovation diffusion model, which divides the process of consumer acceptance of new technologies into five stages. The first stage is when a very small number of "innovators" take risks, the second stage is for a few "early adopters" to try it out, the third stage is for the "early public" to follow suit, the fourth stage is for the relatively conservative "late public" to finally make a move, and the fifth stage is for the "laggards" who lag behind the mass consumer group.
The market penetration rate of new energy vehicles has reached 50%, which means that Chinese consumers' acceptance of new energy vehicles is crossing the third stage, and will attract a large number of eager consumers to enter the market, which will be recognized by large-scale consumer groups, and new energy vehicles will truly enter the "popularization period".
The agency believes that with the continuous expansion of the market scale and the choice of mass users, intelligent driving may become the biggest change in the automotive industry, which provides a broad market incremental space for the development of smart cars. The competition of new energy vehicles will also shift from the early "compared to the concept, compared to the vision", to the competition between practical hard-core technology, hard-core experience and business model.
As a technology giant with global influence in the ICT field, this trend will accelerate Huawei's leadership in driving market change.
At present, under the guidance of Huawei's intelligent driving, "intelligent driving" has become an important factor for more and more users to buy cars. At the same time, the more powerful active safety capabilities derived from high-end intelligent driving capabilities are gradually replacing the traditional safety evaluation criteria and becoming an important consideration for users for automotive safety in the intelligent era.
In the market transformation led by Huawei, China's auto market has rapidly shifted from the first half of the competition for electrification to the second half of the competition for intelligence. Technologies such as intelligent driving, intelligent networking, intelligent cockpit, and AI large models have been put on the car one after another. In order to ensure market competitiveness, China's automobile industry chain companies are competing to deploy the above-mentioned advanced technologies. At the same time, it also promotes a new round of industrial structure optimization and upgrading, and the intelligent brands represented by Wenjie stand out, further consolidating the differentiated advantages of China's intelligent automobile industry chain and enhancing the added value and competitiveness of the entire Chinese automobile industry.
From the perspective of the business model of empowering car companies to build cars, Wenjie has become Huawei's "model room".
The explosion of the new M7 and M9, as well as the continuous and rapid growth of the sales volume, all reflect that the company has become the rationality and leadership of Huawei's empowerment of car companies, but the logic behind the best-selling of the company is still that technology is king. Through its strong technical strength and system capabilities, Huawei has helped Wenjie and Zhijie to have differentiated leading advantages, and independent and controllable hard-core technology is becoming the sales moat of Hongmeng Zhixing.
Huawei's successful cases have shown the industry that only by relying on long-term technology accumulation, and only by investing huge R&D strength and long-term accumulation in each piece of technology can we achieve a better experience, faster than others, and a leading position in a single application technology. Only by making solid investment in technology can we take the lead in technology in the future, and only by leading technology can we achieve product leadership and function leadership, and can we be invincible in the future competition without fear of involution.