The M7 sold well just after the pre-sale. The outside world is concerned about Huawei, which sells cars, rather than building a well-off society. Huawei stole all the limelight.
This is the third car that Huawei has cooperated with Cyrus, a subsidiary of Xiaokang, and the second car under the AITO brand. Strictly speaking, M7 is not Huawei’s own car, because its brand name, manufacturing and sales revenue are all owned by Xiaokang Sailis. But the outside world believes that this is Huawei’s car, which was released by Huawei, sold in Huawei’s stores, and personally sold by the top leaders of Huawei’s automobile business.
Actor Hu Jun and Olympic boxing champion Zou Shiming both booked M7. Anyone with a discerning eye can see that they are coming for Huawei, not a well-off society.
The outside world is worried that Xiaokang will become Huawei’s foundry, but Xiaokang does not admit that it has its own ideas. Xiaokang wants to use Huawei’s strength to realize the transformation of new energy automobile business, and the sparrow becomes a phoenix. Its new factory in Shapingba, Chongqing, which is used to produce M7, is called "Phoenix".
But the cooperation with Huawei is both beautiful and dangerous.
From the first car, the Celestial SF5, to the third car, the M7, Huawei’s involvement is getting deeper and deeper, and its voice is getting bigger and bigger.
A Cyrus channel manager told Shentu that the previous rule was that Huawei was in charge of sales and marketing, while Cyrus was in charge of delivery and service, but recently, Huawei slowly began to infiltrate delivery. "The head and deputy head of some stores are all Huawei people, and they are very ambitious."
No company has ever been involved in building cars like Huawei. Huawei has always denied building a car, but it is infinitely close to building a car, making its boundaries blurred. The so-called "asking the boundary" is somewhat "asking the boundary".
However, this does not prevent a well-off society from making money. Shortly after the release of M7, Xiaokang changed its company name to "Sailis" and announced that it had completed a fixed increase of 7.1 billion yuan, which is the largest auto financing project of A shares this year.
Above the water, the two sides cooperated to build a car, which was prosperous, but below the water, the undercurrent surged, and both sides played their own abacus.
Asking for directions by throwing stones: the first car and the third venture
Before cooperating with Xiaokang, Huawei had already entered the automobile industry, and was officially announced at the Shanghai Auto Show in 2019. At that time, it was positioned as a component supplier.
Its partners are not only well-off. BAIC, Changan and GAC, three traditional car companies with deep backgrounds, all cooperated with Huawei, and the time was earlier than Xiaokang.
But in the end, the deepest cooperation with Huawei, the earliest landing and the biggest movement were the well-off society with the weakest sense of existence.
Xiaokang is a traditional car company in Chongqing, and it doesn’t rank very well in the car-making rivers and lakes in China. The earliest company was called Yu ‘an Group, which made motorcycles and had nothing to do with cars. Later, it cooperated with Dongfeng Motor to build the brand "Dongfeng Xiaokang", cut into the automobile industry, and became famous by low-priced vans, and the company was renamed "Xiaokang".
The cooperation with Huawei can be regarded as the third venture of a well-off society.Xiaokang wants to take the road of cooperation with Dongfeng again-set up a new company, Sailis, and build a new energy automobile brand, AITO. The company was renamed "Sailis".
For a well-off society, Huawei’s role is just like the Dongfeng of that year, and it is a white knight on the road to transformation.
Previously, the brand image of Xiaokang has been relatively low-end. Since 2016, it has been a new energy vehicle, which has cost a lot of money and achieved little results. This time, it chose to give its soul to Huawei, trying to make another gamble in the direction of new energy vehicles.
Huawei has always declared that it won’t build cars and wants to be a supplier, but now Yu Chengdong, who is actually in charge of Huawei’s automobile business, has ambitions beyond suppliers.
Huawei is deeply involved as a supplier in the Extreme Fox Alpha S HI version, with many highlights and strong gimmicks, but it has repeatedly delayed delivery; Aouita, built in cooperation with Chang ‘an and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, has a high starting point, but it is still unknown whether the market will buy it or not. Only a well-off society, let Huawei take the lead in "getting on the bus", and it is three in one breath.
From mobile phones to cars, Huawei is broadening its own borders on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is also looking at it while walking, throwing stones and asking for directions.
If Huawei is the person who asks for directions on the road to building a car, then a well-off society is a stone thrown by Huawei.
Sailis SF5 is the first car sold by Huawei. This car was released at the Shanghai Auto Show in April last year, produced by Xiaokang, equipped with Huawei’s smart cockpit solution HiCar, electric drive system and audio unit, and sold in Huawei’s mobile phone experience store.
This first "investment" was not successful, and more than 8,000 vehicles were delivered in 2021. One of the reasons is that Huawei is not deeply involved in this car.
Sailis SF5 was actually released as early as 2019. This is the first model of Xiaokang Sailis, and its sales volume is very bleak. After Huawei reached a cooperation with Xiaokang in 2021, it sent a team to improve this car. However, due to the tight time, this car has no essential change in product strength.
After a bad start, Huawei threw out the second stone, this time it was the new brand AITO and the first model M5, or it cooperated with Xiaokang.
Compared with Lisi SF5, Huawei should be more involved in M5. Huawei led the design, R&D and marketing of the M5, and installed all the Huawei components that can be used, including the Huawei HarmonyOS system. Therefore, this car is called the first HarmonyOS car.
The new car was also released by Huawei. Yu Chengdong spent more than an hour at the end of the conference to promote the car.This is the first time in the automobile industry that a mobile phone manufacturer has released cars produced by other car companies.
This second "vote" was a success. Under Huawei’s vigorous shouting, the M5 delivered over 10,000 yuan in three months, which caused some splash in the Jianghu.
There is a saying in the industry that "three generations of Huawei produce high-quality products". By the time the third car comes to the M7, it already has the explosion potential.
M7 appeared at Huawei’s new product launch conference in July. Previously, Huawei has done a lot of preheating for it, which has aroused the market appetite. Yu Chengdong’s enthusiasm for promoting this car even surpassed that of mobile phones.
According to the official data, the M7 pre-sold 60,000 vehicles in three days. This achievement is quite eye-catching in the car circle, indicating that Huawei has figured out the way to sell cars.
However, the question also follows. Who does the car built under this cooperation mode belong to? How to locate your identity when you still have a weak sense of well-off?
Take what you want: Huawei wants fame, well-off society wants profit.
Huawei firmly controls the dominance of this cooperation. Many people have drawn the equal sign between the company and Huawei directly, so that the owner of M5 in the company has removed the "Sailis" logo from the rear of the car and replaced it with Huawei logo. Is Huawei building a car? It’s like a window paper, and it will break when you poke it.
Huawei needs cars.Even if "the automobile business is Huawei’s only loss-making business, which costs more than one billion dollars a year", it must be done.
After being sanctioned by the United States two years ago, Huawei was unable to get 5G chips from the outside and was forced to sell its glory. The mobile phone business that originally contributed a lot of revenue to Huawei experienced a cliff-like decline.Only cars can fill the gap in the lack of mobile phones.
However, it is not convenient for Huawei to build a car directly. Some analysts believe that Europe is an important market for Huawei’s traditional business. Huawei does not want to turn European car giants into enemies because of building cars, leaving a handle that is both a supplier and a competitor.
The top-level tone comes from Ren Zhengfei. He hopes that Huawei will become a global first-class supplier of smart cars and "help car companies build good cars". The "No suggestions to build cars" order issued by him is still valid for more than one year.
Yu Chengdong, the "hawk", is more anxious than others. He made a crazy test on the border of Huawei’s car-making, which not only violated Ren Zhengfei, but also cleverly went deep into the product process of car-making. The final product was two new cars arranged by Huawei, which created this magical cooperation model with Xiaokang.
“Generally, traditional Tier 1 suppliers are less likely to publicize, and consumers are more inclined to know about car companies than suppliers who provide parts.. Judging from the official information that Huawei wants to be a smart car, the positioning should be to be a Tier 1 supplier that provides parts for car companies. The boundary is relatively clear and will not enter the vehicle field. However, from the current cooperation with some automakers, there are also some cooperation with vague boundaries. Especially this year’s AITO brand. According to the experts of Third Bridge High-tech Consulting,The supplier role of Huawei Tier 1 seems to be beginning to blur.
Huawei took a step forward from Tier1 and became Tier0.5, which crossed the border a little bit and even took the lead. In this process,Xiaokang became that stone, which not only made Huawei ask for directions, but also let it cross the river by feeling the stones.
Let’s look at the other side of cooperation-Xiaokang.
Many people believe that Xiaokang is gradually becoming Huawei’s foundry and losing its dominant position. However, in the narrative of well-off, it is on an equal footing with Huawei and will not do OEM, even though it mainly undertakes the production function.
"I didn’t do a foundry before and now, let alone a foundry." Zhang Xinghai, who has stepped down as the chairman of the group and retired from the background, said categorically at an investor exchange meeting in January this year.
In Zhang Xinghai’s view, Xiaokang entered the automobile industry through cooperation with Dongfeng Group 18 years ago, and achieved the first successful cross-border without being a foundry. So if we cooperate with Huawei for the second cross-border, we will not be a foundry.
This is consistent with Huawei’s external caliber: "The car is still a well-off Cyrus, and Huawei’s role is to assist.. "
Whether it’s a main attack or an assist, it’s not a problem until the cake gets bigger, because there is no cake to be divided. It would be nice for both sides to do their best, take what they need and push forward the matter of building cars.
According to Xiaokang, the cooperation mode between Huawei and Xiaokang is:Huawei is deeply involved in product definition, quality control and channel sales, while Xiaokang is responsible for R&D, manufacturing, delivery, service and creating a life-cycle user experience.
In short, Huawei decides what cars to build and how to build them, and is responsible for selling them, while Xiaokang is responsible for production delivery and after-sales service.
Liu He, the channel manager of Cyrus, confirmed this statement to Shentu. "Huawei is responsible for sales and marketing, and Cyrus is responsible for delivery and service, so the experience center is Huawei and the user center is Cyrus." He said. At the beginning of this year, Celeste’s national stores have been changed into AITO brand user centers one after another, in order to prepare for fully promoting the sales and service of vehicles with the brand of Wenjie.
Regardless of the project dominance, the benefits that a well-off society will gain from it are obvious.
An industry insider who is close to a well-off society told Shentu,The brand of the car is well-off, and the sales revenue is well-off. For every car sold by Huawei’s stores, the corresponding commission is extracted.. Therefore, even if Huawei is deeply involved in product definition, it will still be a supplier model in the end.
For Huawei, the long-term strategic significance is greater than the short-term financial return. Huawei took this opportunity to penetrate the intelligent networked automobile market, go deep into the automobile manufacturing process, and complete the layout in terminal sales, which is more convenient than building cars directly by itself.
Moreover, as long as the series of models in the world continue to sell well, Huawei has set a benchmark case in the industry, which has laid the foundation for Huawei to cast a bigger net.
Don’t ask West East: Will the delicate relationship be broken?
After more than a year of cooperation, although there are rumors from time to time, Huawei has not made equity investment in Xiaokang. This casts a layer of uncertainty on the stability of this cooperation.
"There is no joint venture between Huawei and Xiaokang, and it can be withdrawn immediately if it is withdrawn." Liu He said to the deep road.
At present, both Xiaokang and Huawei are open to the outside world."It is not up to us to decide who Huawei cooperates with." Xiaokang once said.
Huawei is now involved in building a car in three modes:
First, as a component supplier., providing car networking modules and other spare parts products to car manufacturers, such as Huawei’s motor and battery management system, etc. This model has the lowest participation of Huawei;
The second is HI(Huawei Inside) mode.Car companies use Huawei’s complete set of smart car solutions, and the tail of the vehicle is marked with "HI". Typical cases are extremely fox and Aouita;
The third is the "Huawei Intelligent Selection" model., led by Huawei, provides full-stack solutions, and Huawei terminal BG defines products, carries out industrial design, grasps user experience and realizes product sales. This model has the deepest participation of Huawei.
Of these three modes, the first two toB (for enterprises) and the third toC (for consumers), and Yu Chengdong, who has been in charge of Huawei’s consumer business before, is famous for his "big mouth", prefers the third mode. Xiaokang is the only partner with a project under this model.
Huawei has every right and freedom to choose more partners, just as it can decide whose car to drive into its 5000 stores nationwide. It is reported that Chery, Jianghuai and Polar Fox, in addition to Cyrus, have reached cooperation intentions with Huawei to choose smart cars.
Previously, only Celestial SF5 and Wenjie M5 were sold in Huawei offline stores. With the delivery of the Extreme Fox Alfa S HI version, Aouita 11 opened the reservation, and more models were queuing to enter Huawei stores. Xiaokang will soon be no longer the only one.
Huawei’s background and power make many car companies both love and fear when they cooperate. Liu He said to Shentu, "Huawei has people in almost every department in Celeste, and the personnel department is no exception."
Contradictions and frictions in cooperation are inevitable. Liu He was puzzled by the complicated relationship between Cyrus and Huawei, and it was difficult for him to understand Huawei’s culture. "Xiaokang wants to learn Huawei’s wolf culture, but Huawei’s so-called wolf culture shows a strong desire for control and wants to catch everything. It’s really unbearable."
Xiaokang is well aware of his situation. How to maximize the benefits in this subtle cooperative relationship and draw a clear line of safety at the same time is a big test for a well-off society.
Xiaokang doesn’t want to be a foundry,It hopes to turn Huawei’s power into its own and gain more say for its future development.
An anonymous user said that Xiaokang invited Huawei to write the basic law of Xiaokang, learn super hard every day, make a value evaluation system, and offer online classes like universities, with various activities every month. These practices are to learn from Huawei’s organizational competitiveness.
This is also reflected in the organizational structure.
At the end of last year, Xu Lin, CTO of Xiaokang Co., Ltd., added a new title-President of Celeste (rotating), which was the first time that Celeste appeared as the rotating president. Huawei began to implement the rotating CEO system as early as 2011, and implemented the rotating chairman system in 2018.
According to a recruitment information obtained by Shentu, Xiaokang was still recruiting a rotating president in March this year, and his work place was located in Chongqing. At that time, he was also recruiting the general manager of the Science and Technology Center, the general manager of the M5 product lines in Wenjie, and the director of Huawei’s background strategic planning department. The position of director of strategic planning department is directly related to Huawei, requiring familiarity with Huawei BLM and leading the strategy formulation of BU or BG.
Xiaokang has its own ideas, and it tries to use Huawei’s strength to complete organizational change and strategic transformation.
Some people regard the cooperation between Huawei and Xiaokang as a special choice in a special period. In the difficult period of each other, the two sides hit it off and created an unprecedented cooperation mode, leaving a big stone behind the already unsettled lake surface of the car circle.
This thrilling leap may enable Huawei to cross the river and go ashore well-off. But after crossing the river, the time to cut the cake has not yet arrived.