The slogan of Huawei's conference

In the matter of building a car, Huawei seems to be somewhat "schizophrenic."

On the last day of March, Huawei issued an important notice: "Resolution on Huawei not to be a car", which was signed by Huawei's founder and CEO, re-emphasizing the strategy of "Huawei not to be a car" and emphasizing that this resolution is "valid for 5 years".

Subsequently, Xu Zhijun, the rotating chairman of Huawei, said at the press conference of Huawei's 2022 annual report: "Some of our departments, individuals or partners are abusing Huawei's brand, and we have been investigating this matter. The brand built by Huawei for more than 30 years will not be abused by anyone. Huawei did not build a car, nor did it have any brand of car. "

Obviously, this is aimed at "Huawei asks the world" and Yu Chengdong behind it.

On March 8th, AITO brand used a brand-new slogan "Huawei asks the world" in the content of WeChat, Weibo and other platforms. Subsequently, the official Weibo account of Huawei Terminal also forwarded this Weibo, and the article said: "Where do you want to go, Huawei asks the world car and will accompany you forever!"

"Huawei asks the world" was born.

Although outsiders have speculated that this is a "Huawei brand car", Huawei denied it, saying that "Huawei asks the world" is a brand-new business model initiated by Huawei, and the expression is very cautious.

However, this action caught the attention of Huawei. In today's resolution, it is particularly emphasized that "Huawei or Huawei logo is not allowed to appear in the publicity and appearance of the whole vehicle." This is undoubtedly a direct declaration of the "death penalty" of the brand "Huawei asks the world".

3 1 night, according to Weibo @ Sun 09, "Wenjie Store will start to dismantle all related materials tomorrow (April 1 day)."

From March 8 to April 1, the brand "Huawei Border" only existed for 25 days, and then it was declared "dead". What will exist in the future can only be "boundaries" or something else.

Why was "Huawei asks the world" born?

In this case, Yu Chengdong is the hardest hit.

As the CEO of Huawei consumer BG and smart car solution BU, Yu Chengdong can be said to be the most concerned person in Huawei.

According to the previous strategy, Huawei is determined not to build cars, but to help enterprises build good cars. However, in the face of high barriers in the automobile industry, even if it is as powerful as Huawei, it has not achieved too 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 new product line is not complete, and its improvement in electric drive and intelligence is limited.

The second is the Huawei Inside model (referred to as "HI model"), which provides a full-stack smart car solution. At present, there are three main partners who adopt Huawei HI model: Polar Fox, Guangzhou Automobile and Obieta. Among them, the polar fox Alpha S HI version and Aouita 1 1 have been mass-produced.

But in HI mode, who will lead the development of vehicle models becomes a problem. Although Huawei said that they only provide related technologies and solutions for full-stack smart cars, car companies think that Huawei's performance is somewhat strong, and even "everything wants to participate and make decisions."

As a result, the development of HI models is always not so smooth. For example, Huawei HI's first model, the Extreme Focus Alpha S HI version, was unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show in 20021year, but the real delivery started in July 2022 after 15 months, and the market performance was not ideal.

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

In this case, Huawei and GAC broke up directly, and Aouita 1 1 became the "last hope" of Huawei's HI model.

Yu Chengdong knows that it is difficult for Huawei to have its own place in the automotive field only by selling parts and HI mode. Therefore, Huawei urgently needs an active cooperation mode, that is, the third cooperation mode: an intelligent car selection mode that deeply participates in product and vehicle design and provides sales network channels.

AITO is the representative of this model, which was jointly launched by Huawei and Sellers. Among them, Huawei is responsible for the interior and exterior decoration design and intelligence of products, and sells them in Huawei's own stores; Selis is responsible for vehicle design, production and after-sales maintenance.

Judging from the performance last year, this model is undoubtedly successful. As a new brand, AITO delivered more than 76,000 vehicles in just one year, and the monthly delivery volume repeatedly broke through 10,000 vehicles, which once became a hot topic in the automobile circle.

But in 2023, things took a turn for the worse. In June 2023, 5438+ 10, the industry sales plummeted directly to 4475 vehicles; In February, it was further reduced to 3505 vehicles.

In order to curb the decline in sales, Huawei and AITO played a combination boxing: first, they announced that the price reduction of M5 EV and M7 was as high as 30,000 yuan, and then they used the words "Huawei asks the world" to publicize and endorse the world through the appeal of Huawei brand.

Is this step wise enough?

From the day it was born, AITO? Questioning the World has been emphasizing its "China content", which may not be the official intention, but it is undeniable that it is because of the endorsement of Huawei brand that AITO has been promoted to a height that does not belong to it.

Now the industry sales have dropped significantly. As an iconic brand of intelligent car selection mode, it is understandable that Huawei will give him another one at this critical moment. After all, if the industry is really silent, it is likely to mean the failure of Huawei's most proud "intelligent car selection model", and it will be more difficult to further extend this cooperation model to other car companies.

However, contrary to expectations, this way of taking advantage of Huawei's brand power through strong bundling is something that Huawei executives don't want to see, because it looks too much like Huawei building a car and has to give Yu Chengdong a "blow" directly.

Yu Chengdong may be wronged or too helpless. 3 1 In the evening, he posted two articles in the internal forum of Huawei:

"This will only make it harder for us to do it!" This is the truest expression of Yu Chengdong at the moment.

Huawei executives insist on not building cars, and naturally they have their considerations. In their view, Huawei should not only become a certain automobile brand and serve some consumers, but also exist as a supplier in more automobile brands and serve a wider range of people.

Their goal is the whole automobile market, and they want to be the "Bosch" of China.

But as a netizen said: "Some people want to be Bosch, others want to be Toyota." Yu Chengdong seems to have some different views on Huawei's automobile road.

Does Yu Chengdong want to turn Huawei into a Toyota? How should Huawei take the road to cars? I can't judge. But I very much agree with Yu Chengdong's sentence: "Leave it to time to test!"

Yes, time will test everything.

This article is from the author of Icano. The stone of the point belongs to the author. Please contact the author for any form of reprint. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.