Huawei released a new brand "Qiankun", and the automotive business "has passed the heavy mountain"?

With the continuous advancement of intelligence in the automotive industry, the era of high competition in the intelligent automobile industry has arrived.

On April 24, Huawei unveiled its new intelligent driving brand, "Qiankun", which leads the industry with the "Qian" and "Kun" that stand tall in the sky, and takes root to master the core technology.

Jin Yuzhi, CEO of Huawei's Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, made his debut and announced the brand's vision, "Bringing intelligence to every vehicle and leading the second century of global automotive transformation." ”

Huawei's car BU is making a high-profile return

With Jin Yuzhi's "debut", the Huawei car BU under his command has also returned to the public eye in a high-profile manner.

In May 2019, Huawei's Car BU was established as "Bosch" in the era of smart cars, which sells parts on the one hand and provides full-stack integrated solutions for car companies on the other.

In May 2021, after Yu Chengdong took over Huawei's car BU, he planned a third business model in addition to parts and Huawei's HI model - Zhixuan Car (Hongmeng Zhixuan).

However, early consumer criticism, peer scrutiny, internal arguments, and the handling of partnerships challenged the nerves of the entire team. Coupled with the huge losses in successive years, Huawei's car BU is even more questionable.

In November 2023, Huawei spun off its core automotive-related business and integrated the core technologies and resources of the intelligent vehicle solution business (i.e., the toB business, and the smart car business that does not involve toC) into the new entity.

In January 2024, Huawei established Shenzhen Yinwang Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. to promote the independence of Huawei's vehicle BU business. In March, Shenzhen Yinwang also established subsidiaries in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Dongguan, Nanjing, Suzhou and other places. The outside world speculates that Shenzhen will be loaded with Huawei's car BU technology and resources, and will become a technology open platform with diversified equity in the future to attract more car companies to join.

The launch of the Qiankun brand is the latest development of Huawei's intelligent vehicle solutions.

Qian, which is "the strength of heaven and unremitting self-improvement", leads the future with the kinetic energy of upward growth; Kun is the "top of Kunlun", standing in heaven and earth, and winning the future. "Qiankun" means to break through the sky upwards and lead the industry, and to take root downwards and master hard-core technology.

Huawei Qiankun has brought new and upgraded solutions such as "Qiankun ADS", "Qiankun Vehicle Control", and "Qiankun Vehicle Cloud". Specifically, in the field of intelligent driving, Qiankun ADS 3.0 has brought improvements from four dimensions: architecture, safety, scenarios, and parking.

In addition, Huawei also released a new generation of HarmonySpace, which brings innovative technologies such as the Qianwu engine, Qiankun audio, and the strongest in-vehicle ecosystem.

According to Huawei, "Qiankun" and "Hongmeng Cockpit" have become the two core brands of Huawei's intelligent vehicle solutions.

With the continuous increase in investment in the field of intelligent driving, the continuous expansion of the computing power of the equipped chips, and the rapid iteration of software versions, in the current market pattern, various brand models have shown a high level of homogeneity in parking assistance and high-speed pilot assisted driving functions. Looking ahead, the competition in China's intelligent driving market will also become more intense.

According to analysts, Huawei's deep commitment to the ICT field, especially its technological leadership in 5G, HUAWEI CLOUD, and digital power, provides a solid technical foundation for Huawei's entry into the automotive industry chain. The fluency, stability, and security of the HarmonyOS system, as well as Huawei's leadership in hardware computing power, provide strong support for Huawei's development in the field of automotive intelligence.

Profitability may be just around the corner

As the competition in China's new energy vehicle market is gradually heating up, the word "Huawei" has become a golden sign recognized by consumers and OEMs. Especially since the beginning of this year, car companies that are not limited to the cooperation model and cooperate with Huawei have begun to show a trend of intensive outbreaks.

The day before this press conference, Huawei's intelligent car solution official posted on Weibo, @ 10 brands in one go, namely ARCFOX, Changan Automobile, AVATAR, Deep Blue Automobile, VOYAH Automobile, Mengshi Technology, GAC Trumpchi, Hongmeng Zhixing, AITO Automobile, and Zhijie Automobile.

As we all know, there are three commercial models for Huawei's car BU to cooperate with car companies, namely Tier1 (traditional parts supplier model, which supplies intelligent parts for car companies), HI mode (Huawei Inside mode), and smart selection mode.

Among the above-mentioned brands, ARCFOX, AITO Automobile, and Zhijie Auto are all brands under HarmonyOS Zhixing, and the corresponding brands are Xiangjie, Wenjie, and Zhijie, while AVATAR, Deep Blue Automobile, VOYAH Automobile, and Mengshi Technology are likely to adopt the HI mode (Huawei Inside mode) to improve the intelligent experience of automotive products through the injection of Huawei's intelligent car solutions.

Compared with Huawei's three automotive business models, the smart car model is undoubtedly the one with the highest participation of Huawei. In this model, Huawei not only provides technical support, but is also deeply involved in product definition, design, and marketing.

However, this in-depth cooperation has also given rise to a lot of thought. For example, when Huawei becomes the "soul" of the product, how should the brand power of the car companies themselves be reflected? Will the car companies gradually become the "shell" of relying on Huawei under the smart car model?

In the eyes of industry insiders, the smooth development of Huawei's smart car business is closely related to the cooperation of car companies. Traditional and established car companies may not have the experience of cooperating with "super suppliers" and "super dealers" like Huawei in the past few decades, and it is inevitable that there will be some ideological cooperation problems in the early stage of cooperation.

However, if we can let go of these nihilistic things and focus on "building and selling good cars" together, we can maximize the improvement of Huawei's technical capabilities and brand influence.

It is worth noting that with the continuous expansion of Huawei's "big alliance", can the problem of profitability be truly solved?

In March this year, Yu Chengdong said that Huawei's smart car business has completed a turnaround in the first three months of 2024, and the car BU is close to the edge of breakeven, and it is expected to turn losses into profits from April to achieve benign positive development.

It is generally believed that Huawei's automotive business has reached a stable point of profitability, and as long as the sales volume is maintained, it will be just around the corner to make up for the losses in the early stage. In 2023, Li Auto will achieve revenue of 123.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 173.5%, and a net profit of 11.8 billion yuan for the whole year. With the profit in 2023 alone, Li Auto has made up for the accumulated losses of the previous five years in one go.

Jin Yuzhi expects that by the end of 2024, there will be more than 500,000 vehicles equipped with Huawei's intelligent driving system.