AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/08 Report--

On March 8, the AITO car jointly built by Huawei and Cyrus released the "International Working Women's Day poster" on the official Weibo and Wechat official account platforms, which used the new slogan "HUAWEI question", while the well-known "AITO question" did not appear. Subsequently, the official Weibo account on Huawei's terminal also forwarded the Weibo post, with the caption: "where you want to go, HUAWEI asks the car, always accompany you!"

In contrast, some netizens joked that AITO quietly used the phrase "HUAWEI question" to replace the previous AITO question, whether it is going to hang Huawei in the future, and once again triggered speculation about whether Huawei has taken the lead in asking about the car. Some people in the industry believe that the "HUAWEI question" may be the brand name of Huawei Ecological Automobile Alliance, not Huawei car-making in the traditional sense. The "AITO question" becomes the "HUAWEI question". It may be the first step in ecology.

However, not long after the news came to light, both Huawei and Cyrus responded quickly. Huawei officially replied: "HUAWEI is a Huawei eco-car brand and a new business model created by Huawei." Huawei provides core software and hardware technologies such as electrification and intelligent parts, and helps car companies sell good cars through product definition, user experience, quality control, channel retail and brand marketing. to help car companies achieve commercial success while driving large-scale sales of Huawei smart auto parts. Cyrus is the earliest and deepest car company to cooperate with Huawei. The two sides signed an agreement on business deepening cooperation in February this year. The two sides will also further promote the establishment of a joint innovation center to provide users with a more efficient and convenient intelligent travel experience and lead a new era of intelligence in the automotive industry. "

Cyrus responded: "the long-term and deep cross-border cooperation relationship and cooperation model between the company and Huawei have not changed." The two sides will further deepen joint business cooperation and launch more new and competitive products that are popular with users in the future. "

It is understood that on February 25, Cyrus signed a deepening joint business agreement with Huawei, Huawei terminal continued to make new product definitions, Cyrus continued to do a good job in the iterative evolution of existing models, enhanced product experience, and launched a new platform for the future. The two sides aim to achieve production and sales of 1 million vehicles by 2026, while the first flagship model based on the new platform is scheduled to be released within this year.

It is important to note that on Valentine's Day in February this year, a Weibo blogger posted that he heard that Huawei had further improved its dominance in the question world, from "deep empowerment" to "overall dominance", when the "AITO" LOGO in the poster picture became HUAWEI plus chrysanthemum logo LOGO. The promotional picture LOGO of the M5 released by Yu Chengdong the day before also became HUAWEI plus chrysanthemum mark LOGO, which also attracted a lot of attention in the industry at that time. Subsequently, Huawei responded to the news that "Huawei fully dominates AITO" and said: "this move is only to highlight Huawei's long-term and deep ability to AITO, the long-term and deep cooperation between Huawei and Cyrus remains unchanged, and the two sides will continue to jointly launch more and more competitive new products in the future."

Not long ago, Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of terminal business and BU CEO of smart car solution, reiterated that "Huawei does not build cars" and said that Huawei's investment in Selis is not decreasing, but increasing, emphasizing that under the smart selection mode, the one who benefits most must be Sellis, which has the earliest cooperation, the deepest accumulation and the richest product models.

In fact, since February, there have been rumors in the market that "a large number of Huawei R & D personnel have evacuated from Selis, and Selis has become a contract manufacturer of Huawei." in response to the news, Cyrus replied in the Q & A platform of listed companies: "this is false news, and the long-term and deep cross-border cooperation between the company and Huawei has not changed." As for whether the smart selection model adopted by Huawei and Cyrus will become a Huawei contract manufacturer, Yu Chengdong also responded: "some people say that Selis is a contract manufacturing model, in fact, the two sides are joint research and development. Huawei not only provides parts, but also understands the needs of consumers from design, quality, user experience, overall quality control, OTA version upgrade, etc., to see where consumers are satisfied and dissatisfied." Constant software upgrades. "

AITO is Huawei's deeply empowered high-end smart car brand, but the two sides have been working together since early 2019. At that time, the cooperation was not the name "AITO", but well-off shares, well-off shares and Huawei held a comprehensive cooperation signing ceremony, the two sides carried out in-depth cooperation on technology, products and channels, and launched the first cooperative model, Cyrus Huawei wisely selected SF5, in April 2021, but the market sales performance of the car is not long.

In December 2022, Cyrus (renamed by Xiaokang) and Huawei jointly launched a new high-end brand "Aito ask", and successively launched two models, the M5 and the M7, which are equipped with Huawei's latest HarmonyOS cockpit and positioned as an intelligent and luxurious medium-sized SUV. Huawei's team is deeply involved in the design, product definition, function stereotyping and post-marketing of the car. According to the industry, although Huawei does not build cars, Huawei has participated in many of the design of the car, in a sense, the M5 is Huawei cars.

As for why Huawei doesn't build cars? Previously, Yu Chengdong said: "there is no need for Huawei to build cars at the end of the market. the boundary is Huawei eco-cars. by setting up an eco-car alliance, we will select a few car companies to join us, join forces and jointly develop them, so as to bring the experience to the extreme." do a good job of product division, and jointly seize the time window for changes in the automobile industry. "

Up to now, there are two models on sale in AITO: M5 and M7. Data show that from January to February 2023, AITO delivered a total of 13711 vehicles, of which 4475 were delivered in January, down 55.88% from the previous month; and 3505 in February, down 21.7% from the previous month, two consecutive months of decline. By contrast, AITO has delivered more than 10,000 vehicles for many months in a row.

According to the previous news, this year M5, M7 two models will launch a high-end intelligent auxiliary driving version, at the same time, the new model M9 will also be officially launched. Yu Chengdong said bluntly that Huawei is mainly engaged in medium-and high-end products and will not involve the market below 200000. In the future, we hope that we will work together in the new energy vehicle market. Therefore, it is expected that the price of the M9 will not be too low.

Why does Yu Chengdong focus on middle and high-end products? Yu Chengdong explained: "if we make products under 200000 yuan, we will lose money, so we can't do it." But we will work with other brands to make the market bigger. " Although AITO sales have soared, Cyrus has been in the red, according to the financial report. Of this total, Selis posted a net loss of 2.675 billion in the first three quarters of 2022, a sharp drop of 149.89% compared with the same period last year, which was the third year in a row that Selis suffered a loss.

As for Huawei's BU development goal, Yu Chengdong believes that in order to achieve profitability in 2025, we must first help car companies sell 1 million vehicles.

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