Yu Chengdong will not leave, and Huawei is gradually returning to various business lines.
Text丨Zhijia.com Li Duoyu
Editor丨Zhijia.com Zero sauce
Yesterday (April 30), Huawei released an internal personnel adjustment document, announcing that Yu Chengdong will step down as CEO of Huawei Device BG, but will still retain the position of Chairman of Huawei Device BG, and He Gang, the former chief operating officer of Huawei Device BG, will take over as CEO of Huawei Device BG.
Huawei insiders confirmed to Zhijia.com that this adjustment is true.
This business adjustment occurred at a time when the public opinion caused by a traffic accident in the M7 of Wenjie triggered rumors that Yu Chengdong was removed from the smart car business.
On April 24, at the Huawei Intelligent Vehicle Solution Conference held before the opening of the Beijing Auto Show, Yu Chengdong, who had stepped down as CEO of Huawei Automotive BU in September 2023 and was promoted to chairman, did not show up, while Jin Yuzhi made his first public appearance in front of the media as the CEO of the automotive BU, and released Huawei's new intelligent driving solution brand "Qiankun" as the protagonist of the conference.
The outside world interprets Jin Yuzhi's appearance as Huawei's car BU officially entering the Jin Yuzhi era (see: "Qiankun" landed, Huawei car BU opened the Jin Yuzhi era).
After stepping down as CEO of the car BU and CEO of the terminal BG, Yu Chengdong, as the main promoter of Huawei's internal intelligent car business, seems to have been continuously compressed.
However, according to Huawei insiders, this does not mean that Yu Chengdong's scope of power has narrowed.
According to the information on Huawei's official website, Yu Chengdong's current positions are: Executive Director of Huawei, Chairman of the Device BG, Chairman of the Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, and Director of the IRB of Intelligent Terminals and Intelligent Vehicle Components.
The above-mentioned person said that serving as the chairman of the terminal BG means that Yu Chengdong is still the leader of the business. In addition, the existence of Huawei's Investment Review Board (IRB) department is extremely important to determine the investment approval of specific business projects. Yu Chengdong still serves as the director of the intelligent terminal IRB, indicating that he has investment decision-making power in the business.
Yu Chengdong has been the CEO of Huawei Device Company since 2011 for 13 years, so does this resignation mean that Yu Chengdong will stay away from the front-line work of Hongmeng Zhixing?
The person said that this personnel adjustment is a consideration made by Huawei in order to better adapt to market changes and the company's long-term development plan.
This kind of change and long-term planning, first, Hongmeng Zhixing (smart car) business is gradually expanding, and the cooperation brand with Celis, Chery, BAIC, and Jiangqi have all launched new models this year;
Huawei will not shrink its business to the domestic market for long.
According to Canalys' latest report, Huawei will regain the first place in the smartphone market in Chinese mainland in the first quarter of 2024.
According to the report, in the first quarter of 2024, the smartphone market in Chinese mainland picked up for the first time in two years, with shipments unchanged from the same period last year, reaching 67.7 million units. Huawei's Mate and nova series have received an overwhelming market response, with shipments of 11.7 million units and a market share of 17%. After 13 quarters of hard work, Huawei regained the first place in the Chinese mainland market.
As the direct person in charge of the mobile phone business, He Gang, who has just taken over as CEO of the smart terminal BG.
He Gang joined Huawei in 1998, according to Zhijia.com, He Gang was initially responsible for the wireless business at Huawei, and in 2011, at the suggestion of Yu Chengdong, He Gang entered the mobile phone business and served as the president of Huawei's consumer BG mobile phone product line, and then promoted to the chief operating officer of Huawei's terminal BG and the director of the sustainable development committee of Huawei's terminal BG, and has been the second person in Huawei's terminal business.
He Gang and Yu Chengdong have worked together for many years, and starting in the second half of 2023, Yu Chengdong will no longer manage the front-line mobile phone business, and will have transferred more work to He Gang.
Of course, there is also a premise for this transfer, that is, Huawei's terminal business has been reborn after many years of sanctions, and Huawei has found a way to operate in a suppressed state.
Regarding the adjustment of Yu Chengdong and He Gang's positions, some people analyzed the position relationship between Lei Jun and Lu Weibing.
Lei Jun let Lu Weibing take full charge of the mobile phone business, and since then Lei Jun has been fully liberated to devote himself to the automobile business.
However, judging from the information obtained from many aspects of the intelligent driving network, the personnel adjustment is that Huawei's various businesses are gradually returning to normal, in the automotive business, Huawei is still a large-scale expansion posture, and comprehensively explore new markets, and in the mobile terminal, it will return to the previous radical and regain lost ground.
Huawei's 2023 financial report released at the end of March this year shows that its revenue has returned to 700 billion yuan, and its five major businesses have grown in an all-round way. In 2023, Huawei's revenue will be 704.174 billion yuan, up 9.6% year-on-year, the highest in the past three years, and its net profit will be 86.95 billion yuan, up 144.5% year-on-year. The five main businesses, ICT infrastructure and terminals, cloud computing, digital energy, and intelligent vehicle solutions, increased by 2.3%/17.3%/21.9%/3.5%/128.1% year-on-year, respectively.
In 2023, the company's R&D expenses will be 164.7 billion yuan, accounting for 23.4% of revenue, and R&D personnel will account for 55% of the total number of employees, with a cumulative R&D expenditure of more than 1.11 trillion yuan in the past ten years.
At the electric vehicle 100 meeting more than a month before the change of positions between Yu Chengdong and He Gang, Yu Chengdong said that Hongmeng Zhixing's business had turned a profit in March.
However, he did not confirm whether the gross profit of the bicycle or the net profit turned positive.
However, according to the latest quarterly financial report data of Cialis, its revenue reached 6.561 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than four times, a net profit of 220 million yuan, and a gross profit margin increased to 21.5%.
The hot sales of the new M7 and M9 are putting HarmonyOS Zhixing's business on the right track.
On the one hand, Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution business (car BU), which has been losing money, is becoming independent and introducing capital from a number of OEMs, and the information obtained by Zhijia.com from relevant channels shows that a number of joint venture brands represented by Toyota will adopt Huawei's car BU solution this year.
Although Yu Chengdong predicted in March, the car BU business is also close to the edge of breakeven. "It is expected that from April onwards, it should be able to achieve a turnaround. ”
This projection has not yet materialized.
However, it is an indisputable fact that the car BU business is gradually improving.
However, Zhijia.com learned from Huawei that the automotive business occupies a small share of Huawei's entire business, and there is a view that Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei does not attach importance to this business.
In Huawei's 2023 financial report, the focus of its plan for 2024 is to "actively promote the commercial use of 5G-A technology, and build hyper-converged data centers and green data centers with intelligent computing power and general-purpose computing power." ”
This is clearly a further focus on computing power and artificial intelligence.
However, judging from the resumes of Jin Yudong and He Gang, the two successors who successively succeeded Yu Chengdong as CEO of the car BU and CEO of the terminal, Huawei is vigorously enriching the layout of the smart car business.
Judging from Huawei's lineup to participate in the 2024 Beijing International Auto Show, Huawei can be said to be fully dispatched this time:
1. Hongmeng Zhixing is the first to appear on the same stage in the three worlds: the world of asking, the world of wisdom, and the world of enjoyment;
2. Huawei Digital Power: Led the establishment of the "Supercharging Alliance". Sailis Group, Great Wall Motor, Jiangqi Group, Guangzhou Automobile Group, AVATR Technology, Beijing New Energy, Li Auto, Xiaopeng Motors, Chery Green Energy, BYD, and Nezha Automobile have all joined, covering almost half of the domestic auto companies.
3. The intelligent vehicle business (car BU) released a new brand "Qiankun";
4. Optical Applications and HUAWEI CLOUD participated in the exhibition indirectly, and are actively developing the automotive business.
Yu Chengdong's resignation as CEO of smart devices this time is not a departure, but the beginning of the gradual return of Huawei's various business lines.