On the evening of July 2, the manufacturer of "Wenjie" announced that it would acquire 919 series of text and graphic trademarks such as Wenjie that have been registered or applied for from Huawei and its affiliates, as well as 44 related design patents, with a total purchase price of 2.5 billion yuan. Since Huawei has previously transferred the ownership of the Zhijie and Xiangjie brands to Chery and BAIC, Huawei will no longer own any vehicle brands after the end of this transaction.
In fact, this also means that in the matter of "Huawei does not make cars", Yu Chengdong, who was quite a bit "outside the country and will not be subject to military orders" in the past, still can't screw Ren Zhengfei after all.
Going back to November 2020, Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Huawei, issued a document emphasizing that "Huawei does not make cars", and at the same time, sternly stated that "whoever makes suggestions to build cars in the future, interferes with the company, can be transferred from the post and look for another job", and indicated at the bottom of the article that this article will take effect from the date of publication and will be valid for 3 years.
In mid-2021, Yu Chengdong became the head of Huawei's automotive business and led the integration of Huawei's automotive business unit and consumer business group, and speculation about Huawei's car manufacturing surged again. Yu Chengdong then led the launch of the smart car model, which helped the desperate Cialis to "come back to life", and the "Wenjie" model jointly launched by the two sides was a success. On March 8, 2023, in the promotional slogan of social channels, the original words "AITO Wenjie" were changed to "HUAWEI Wenjie". This is seen as a signal that Huawei will further dominate the development of AITO automobiles.
However, on the morning of March 31, 2023, an internal announcement of Huawei's "Resolution on Huawei's Not Making Cars" circulated on the Internet. According to the news, the resolution was signed by Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, once again emphasizing that Huawei does not make cars and is valid for 5 years. Ren Zhengfei specifically emphasized that the words "Huawei/HUAWEI" cannot appear on the publicity and appearance of the whole vehicle, and emphatically pointed out that "'Huawei Wenjie' and 'HUAWEI AITO' cannot be used." ”
Just after the "Resolution on Huawei Not Making Cars" was made public, at Huawei's annual report meeting, Xu Zhijun, the rotating chairman, said, "Huawei's strategy has not changed, not to build cars, to help car companies build good cars." Xu Zhijun even directly criticized, "Individual departments, individuals or partners are abusing the Huawei brand, and in the process of investigating and dealing with this matter, the brand built by Huawei for more than 30 years will not be abused." Huawei will rectify its internal promotional materials such as flagship stores and return to strategy. This is almost directly naming Yu Chengdong.
In the past few years, the disagreement between Yu Chengdong and Ren Zhengfei has been described by the media as a "dark war" on whether to build a car, but it is clear that Ren Zhengfei still has the final say in Huawei's grand strategy.
The outside world has always wondered, why did Ren Zhengfei insist on not building cars? Personally, I believe that, to a certain extent, Ren Zhengfei has learned from TSMC's development experience.
On February 29 this year, TSMC President Wei Zhejia said that TSMC, under the active leadership of Zhang Zhongmou, has reached the world's first step by step, among which customer trust is very important. The rival technology may one day catch up with TSMC, and the manufacturing may also be as good as TSMC; However, in terms of customer trust, rivals can never catch up with TSMC. He said that the first step to gain the trust of customers is not to compete with customers, and two powerful competitors in South Korea and California (referring to Samsung and Intel) make their own products, and they also want to compete with TSMC, "there is no door".
The same principle now applies to Huawei. In the automotive business, Huawei's real leadership and promotion are intelligent cockpit and autonomous driving technologies and products. If Huawei also makes its own cars, it will become a direct competitor to its own customers, and it will be difficult for other domestic car companies to incorporate Huawei's intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving products into the supply chain, and even spend huge sums of money on self-development. From this point of view, Ren Zhengfei's insistence on "Huawei does not make cars" is more strategic and long-term. On the other hand, CATL, China's lithium battery leader, also chose not to build cars.
Huawei's determination to "not build cars" seems to be gaining the trust of some customers. In a group interview after Huawei's car BU technology conference on April 24, Vice President Chi Linchun said that the three major central enterprises (FAW, Dongfeng, Changan), the three local state-owned enterprises (BAIC, SAIC, and GAC), the four major private enterprises (BYD, Geely, Great Wall, Chery), and some new forces in car manufacturing "all use our solutions." In addition, one of Japan's three major car companies is talking with Huawei about cooperation in intelligent driving, and Audi has been a customer of Huawei's car BU.
We must also see that compared with TSMC and CATL, which do not compete with customers, Samsung and BYD's whole industry chain model may not be completely inferior, and can only be said to have their own advantages and disadvantages. The battle between routes and modes can only wait for time to test, and there are certain industry differences between new energy vehicles and semiconductors.
Since Huawei has chosen to be the "TSMC of the car industry", it should go on firmly, rather than a certain wavering as in the past few years. Even if Huawei wants to adjust its strategy and rebuild cars, it will have to wait until the five-year validity period of the "Resolution on Huawei Not Making Cars" expires.
Author丨Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News Special Chief Writer Liu Xu
Source丨Trend Capture