HUAWEI asks the world: 25 days for “birth” and 25 days for “age”

Huawei seems to be somewhat "schizophrenic" when it comes to building cars.

On the last day of March, Huawei issued an important notice: "Resolution on Huawei not to build cars." This resolution was signed by Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, and once again emphasized that "Huawei "Don't build cars" strategy, and emphasized that this resolution is "valid for 5 years."

Subsequently, Huawei’s rotating chairman Xu Zhijun said this again at the Huawei 2022 annual report conference: “Some of our departments, individuals or partners are abusing Huawei’s brand. We have been Under investigation. The brand that Huawei has built over more than 30 years will not be abused by anyone. Huawei does not make cars, nor does it have any brand of cars."

Obviously, this is aimed at the "HUAWEI issue. "Boundary", and Yu Chengdong behind it.

On March 8, the AITO brand used the new slogan "HUAWEI Asking the World" in content on WeChat, Weibo and other platforms. Subsequently, the official Weibo account of Huawei Terminal also forwarded this Weibo. blog, with the accompanying text saying: "Wherever you want to go, HUAWEI Wenjie Car will always accompany you!"

"HUAWEI Wenjie" was born.

Although the outside world has speculated that this is a "Huawei brand car", Huawei has flatly denied this and said that "HUAWEI Qianjie" is Huawei's ecological car brand and a new business model created by Huawei. The statement is very clear. cautious.

However, this action still attracted attention within Huawei. Today's "Resolution" specifically emphasizes that "the 'Huawei' or 'HUAWEI' logo is not allowed to appear on the vehicle's promotion and appearance." This is undoubtedly a direct announcement of the "death penalty" for the "HUAWEI Question" brand.

On the evening of the 31st, according to Weibo @孙shaojun09, "Wenjie store will begin dismantling all related materials tomorrow (April 1)."

From March 8 Counting back, as of April 1, the "HUAWEI Wenjie" brand only existed for 25 days, and was declared "died". The only thing that will exist in the future is "Wenjie" or something else.

Why was “HUAWEI Asking the World” born?

In this incident, Yu Chengdong was hit the hardest.

As the CEO of Huawei Consumer BG and Smart Car Solutions BU, Yu Chengdong can be said to be the person who cares most about the automotive business in Huawei.

According to its previous strategy, Huawei is determined not to build cars, but to "help companies build good cars." But in the face of high barriers in the automotive industry, even companies as strong as Huawei have not been able to achieve ideal development.

There are three main modes of cooperation between Huawei and car companies. The first is to sell standardized auto parts products. However, Huawei’s product line, which is new to the industry, is not complete, and most of them are in the areas of electric drive and intelligence. The increments gained are limited.

The second is Huawei Inside mode (referred to as "HI mode"), which provides full-stack smart car solutions. Currently, there are three main partners using Huawei's HI mode: Jihu, GAC, and Avita. Among them, the JiFox Alpha S HI version and Avita 11 have achieved mass production.

But in HI mode, who will lead the development of models becomes a problem. Although Huawei states that it only provides full-stack smart car-related technologies and solutions, car companies believe that Huawei's performance is somewhat strong, and even "want to participate in and make decisions on everything."

This has led to the development of HI models not always going smoothly. For example, Huawei HI’s first model, the Extreme Fox Alpha S HI version, was unveiled as early as the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, but the actual delivery started in Fifteen months later, in July 2022, the market performance was also unsatisfactory.

What is even more surprising is that not long ago, a resolution announcement from GAC Group directly announced that the GAC Aian AH8 project will be changed from joint development with Huawei to independent development, and Huawei will participate as an important supplier. Development and cooperation of the company's own brand models.

At this time, Huawei and GAC directly "broke up", and Avita 11 became the "last hope" of Huawei's HI model.

Yu Chengdong knows that it is difficult for Huawei to have a place in the automotive field just by selling parts and components and the HI model.

Therefore, Huawei urgently needs a cooperation model that can take the initiative. This is the third cooperation model: a smart car selection model that is deeply involved in products, vehicle design, and provides sales network channels.

AITO Wenjie is a representative of this model, launched by Huawei and Thalys. Among them, Huawei is responsible for the interior and exterior design and intelligence of the products, which are sold in Huawei's own stores; Thalys is responsible for vehicle design, production and after-sales maintenance, etc.

Judging from last year’s performance, this model is undoubtedly successful. As a new brand, AITO delivered more than 76,000 vehicles in just one year, with monthly deliveries exceeding 10,000 units. It once became the Hot topics in the circle.

But by 2023, the situation has taken a turn for the worse. In January 2023, Wenjie sales plummeted to 4,475 vehicles; in February, they fell further to 3,505 vehicles.

In order to curb the sluggish sales, Huawei and AITO launched a combination of punches: first announcing a price cut of up to 30,000 yuan for the M5 EV and M7, and then using the words "HUAWEI Asking the World" to promote it. The appeal of the Huawei brand has been endorsed by the industry.

Is this a smart enough move?

Since the day it was born, the AITO industry has been emphasizing its "luxuriousness". This may not be the official intention, but it is inexcusable that it is precisely because of the endorsement of the Huawei brand. It has raised the boundaries of AITO to a level that does not belong to it.

Nowadays, Wenjie’s sales are on an obvious downward trend. As an iconic brand in the smart car selection model, at this critical moment, there is nothing wrong with Huawei giving it another try. After all, if the industry really goes silent, it is likely to mean the failure of Huawei's most proud "smart car selection model", and it will be more difficult to further expand this cooperation model to other car companies.

But it backfired. This method of leveraging Huawei's brand power through strong bundling was something Huawei's top leaders didn't want to see, because it looked too much like Huawei building cars, and they had to give Yu Chengdong a "slap on the head" directly. .

Maybe Yu Chengdong was aggrieved, or maybe he was too helpless. On the evening of the 31st, he posted two messages in Huawei’s internal forum:

“This will only make it more difficult for us! "This is Yu Chengdong's truest expression at this moment.

Huawei’s top management insists on not building cars, so naturally they have their own considerations. In their view, Huawei should not just become a certain car brand and serve some consumers, but should exist as a supplier to more car brands and serve a wider group of people.

Their goal is the entire automobile market, and they want to be China's "Bosch".

But as one netizen said: "Some people want to be Bosch, and some people want to be Toyota." Yu Chengdong seems to have some different views on Huawei's automotive path.

Does Yu Chengdong want to make Huawei a "Toyota"? How should Huawei take its automotive road? I can't judge. But I very much agree with Yu Chengdong’s words: “Leave it to time to test!”

Yes, time will eventually test everything.

This article comes from the author of Yichehao, Electric Zhishi, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author for any form of reprinting. The content only represents the author's opinion and has nothing to do with Bitauto