撰写It’s been a long time since HUAWEI made or didn’t make a car. With March 31st, Huawei once again reiterated its announcement on the decision-making of automobile business, and once again stressed that Huawei won’t make a car, which is valid for five years. It also put forward strict requirements on the exposure of Huawei logo in automobile design. The Resolution on Huawei’s Not Making a Car also mentioned that it was emphasized that "Huawei" or "Huawei" logo was not allowed to appear in the publicity and appearance of the whole vehicle.
Regarding the explanation that the validity period is only five years, Xu Zhijun, Huawei’s rotating chairman, stated this at the financial report conference: "Everyone pays attention to the validity period of five years. In fact, the maximum validity period of all Huawei documents is five years. After three years, we will send another five years. Huawei’s strategy of not building a car has not changed. We help car companies build good cars and become suppliers of incremental parts for smart cars. " He further said: "Recently, some departments, individuals and some partners are abusing the Huawei brand. We have been investigating and dealing with it. The brand that Huawei has built for more than 30 years will not be abused at will. Huawei has not built a car or any brand car. In this document, the issue of brand has also been clearly requested. It is strictly forbidden for Huawei brands to appear in front of automobile brands or as automobile brands. "
Ren Zhengfei, the chairman of Huawei, made a resolution that Huawei would continue not to build cars for five years, and the direct criticism at Huawei’s financial report that "some departments, some individuals and partners abused Huawei’s brand in propaganda" once again pushed Yu Chengdong, the actual helm of Huawei’s automobile business, to the forefront.
Before Huawei reiterated that it would not build a car, since March this year, many actions of Huawei have made the outside world think, and the publicity of building a car next time is huge. First, the logo of "HUAWEI asks the world" was used in the AITO asked world created with Cyrus, and the propaganda speech was changed from "HUAWEI’s deep empowerment" to "Huawei’s all-round leadership" to guide consumers to recognize "car asking the world" as "Huawei car". Yu Chengdong also directly called "AITO asks the world" as "Huawei asks the world" at Huawei’s flagship new product launch conference in the spring of 2023, and said that the new car will be carried. At that time, it caused widespread concern. This change has once again caused speculation about Huawei’s car. At that time, Huawei responded: "We don’t build cars and continue to deeply empower car companies." But every time, it is always so indecisive and vague. On the one hand, it is said that it is not a car, and on the other hand, the HUAWEI brand is directly used. It is inevitable that everyone will not express doubts.
Before asking for publicity
After March 8 th, the propaganda of asking the community
01 initial mission, big mouth and old Yu
After years of technology accumulation, Huawei began to enter the automotive industry in 2019 and established a smart car solution BU. In 2020, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, also served as CEO of Car BU. Since entering the car circle, Yu Chengdong has been called Yu Dazui by the media, and his "shocking statement" has been exposed in public for many times, which not only shocked the industry, but also attracted many peers’ teasing, and some even wanted to "throw shoes" at him. For example: "Buying a fuel car now is like an old-age car", "The M5 in the world can rival a million luxury cars", "Huawei’s car has turned over Tesla in one year and soared in two years, and the annual sales volume will quickly exceed 2 million, and BBA will also be killed", "Some people complain that the M7 in the world is not good-looking, I want to say that his taste is still relatively Low" and "The M7 in the world will completely surpass millions of luxury cars such as Toyota Erffa and Lexus L M".
In fact, Lao Yu’s amazing thunder words at the press conference are good at first, which is nothing more than asking the new automobile brand to rise rapidly and catch up with Wei Xiaoli, Ai ‘an and Nezha. As the head of a car company or a talker, Lao Yu can’t know that these exaggerated "shocking quotations" and "slogans" can add a little topicality and discussion to the brand marketing, but they will also bring negative effects to their word of mouth. The leader of a car company is regarded as a "big mouth" by the industry, which is more or less unpleasant to listen to. No top leader of a state-owned enterprise will do this! Also see private enterprise bosses Cao Dewang, Zong Qinghou, Zhong Yanyan so outspoken! It can only be said that this operation has become the norm in the automobile industry, and everyone does it.
At present, there are three modes of cooperation between Huawei and car companies: the shallowest is to sell parts and technical solutions to car manufacturers as traditional Tier 1 and Tier2 suppliers; The second is Huawei Inside(HI) mode, which applies Huawei’s full-stack smart car solution to products, with Extreme Fox Alpha S HI version and Aouita 11 as representatives; The third is Huawei’s intelligent selection model. Huawei participates more in product definition, styling design, marketing, channels and other aspects, and cooperates more deeply with car companies. The representative of cooperation is the AITO brand jointly created by Huawei and Cyrus.
After receiving a stern statement from a group of senior executives of Huawei. On April 1, at the 2023 China committee of 100 High-level Forum on Electric Vehicles, Yu Chengdong had to reiterate: "Huawei does not build cars, but helps car companies to build good cars together. We have always adhered to this concept." "We want to use the world of inquiry as a brand of cross-border cooperation, so we added’ Huawei’ in front of it. As a result, the company said that it would remove’ Huawei’ and it was heated in the media."
On the evening of March 31st, a user with the signature of "Yu Chengdong" left two messages in Huawei Heartfelt Community: "The times have changed, which will only make us more difficult! After a few years, everyone will understand! Leave time to test! " "For an industry, only in-depth insight and deep understanding can we grasp the right direction! Mark it and come back in a few years! " This statement is somewhat unwilling.
At the same time, Xu Lin, CTO of Celestial Group and President of Celestial Automobile (rotating), responded: "The brand of our cooperation with Huawei is AITO Wenjie. Our cooperation mode is truly joint design, joint development, joint quality control and joint marketing led by Celestial and highly empowered by Huawei. It is true that Huawei has not built a car and is doing joint development with us. "
After the ban was issued, Yu Chengdong personally issued an order on the night of March 31st: Wenjie Store will begin to dismantle all promotional materials related to Huawei on April 1st. It is reported that at present, major HUAWEI specialty stores have been informed that Huawei-related logos in the stores have been removed, and Huawei cars cannot be mentioned in sales speeches, and the vehicle introduction materials have been changed back to "AITO asking the world".
02 Yu Chengdong’s careful thinking behind Huawei’s failure to build a car
Then why did Huawei finally ban cars at this time and criticize the relevant personnel? Some people close to Huawei said that the reason why Huawei is unwilling to build a car is that on the one hand, building a car costs too much money, and it can’t be done without tens of billions. The profound lessons of promising cars, Skyline cars and Evergrande cars. After Huawei’s main business segment, the mobile phone business, was blocked by the old US sanctions, Huawei’s cloud, digital energy and other business segments all needed a lot of money. Father Ren Zhengfei said, "We can’t simply take the same road as Alibaba, Tesla and Amazon … Huawei is not a listed company, and it doesn’t have that much money. They have inexhaustible money in the US stock market."
As the person in charge of Huawei’s car business, Yu Chengdong can only make some achievements in the car business when he encounters setbacks in the mobile phone business. The achievements are nothing more than strong products and good brands, which have no advantages for the world. Yu Chengdong had previously stated that Car BU would be profitable in 2025. This also means that Huawei’s auto business can no longer simply change its scale with losses, but must boost sales and find a balance between growth and making money. After thinking about it, we can only use Huawei’s brand influence empowerment to achieve cornering overtaking.
Huawei is a well-known brand in China and even in the world, while AITO Wenjie is a newly established brand, which is generally well-known in China. Unlike Wei Xiaoli, Ai ‘an and new energy brands supported by state-owned enterprises and joint venture car companies, its parent companies, Chongqing Xiaokang Co., Ltd. and Chongqing Sailisi New Energy Co., Ltd., are unknown, let alone AITO Wenjie brand. If AITO asks the community to empower with the help of Huawei brand, and expand the influence of M5 and M7 through Huawei brand awareness to boost sales, it is still effective at present. Lao Yu’s idea is good, but if the M5 and M7 are not sold well, it will directly affect Huawei’s existing good reputation and national brand image, which is not worth the candle. According to statistics, in 2022, the cumulative sales volume of M5 and M7 vehicles in the world totaled 78,081 vehicles, and the annual sales volume was acceptable.
Huawei brand is a brand that Ren Zhengfei has worked hard for 36 years, just like his own son. Besides, Huawei is only in technical cooperation with Chongqing Xiaokang Co., Ltd. and Celes, and Huawei provides smart car solutions; Huawei has not invested in Chongqing Xiaokang and Chongqing Sailisi New Energy, and there is no title. Ren Zhengfei is willing to give Huawei this golden signboard to Sailisi. The old man weighed again and again, and in the long run, he would only overdraw Huawei’s brand power.
Independent evaluation of automobile market
In the future, Huawei will continue to expand Huawei’s intelligent selection cooperation model, and Cyrus is no longer the only one; With JAC, Chery and BAIC joining Huawei Eco-car, the trademark ownership of AITO will become more subtle. At the same time, how to balance resources, channel space and cooperation mode, and help car companies develop better without overdrawing Huawei’s brand power, is a problem that both sides need to think about.