Q： The new M7 model will be released. How long will Huawei ＂build a car＂ window？

First financial news, AITO is speeding up the listing of new cars. Huawei Terminal announced on September 10th that it will release the new M7 five-seat car on September 12th. With the release of new cars, the matrix of AITO vehicles will include M5, M5 pure electric version, M5 intelligent driving version, M5 pure electric intelligent driving version, M7 and M7, and it is planned to release M9 in the fourth quarter.

AITO Wenjie is a brand jointly launched by Huawei and Cyrus. At present, there is a big gap between the sales volume of the industry and the new force of making cars on the head. As a representative of Huawei’s intelligent car selection model, Huawei urgently needs to prove its ability to ask for cars.

In August, the sales of nine new car-making forces, including Ai ‘an, Ideality, Weilai and Deep Blue, all exceeded 10,000, and the delivery volume of AITO was 5,018.

In the case of sluggish sales in the world, Huawei’s auto business has shown signs of being more enterprising recently. In addition to speeding up the listing of new cars, in June this year, Huawei also received 21 "Jiejie" trademarks, which was interpreted by the industry as that Huawei will have the leading role in Jiejie trademarks and become a unified brand name for Huawei’s smart car selection model in the future. In July, the "AITO Joint Working Group on Marketing and Service" set up by Cyrus Auto and Huawei began to be fully responsible for the end-to-end closed-loop management of marketing, sales, delivery, service and channels, marking the strengthening of cooperation between the two parties. From the perspective of products in the second half of the year, the new M7 and M9 models are undoubtedly the most concerned.

Cross-border sales are under pressure

Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of BG and CEO of BU, a smart car solution, has previously revealed some information about the new M7 model. According to Weibo, the model has 3338mm interior space and 686L trunk volume. Yu Chengdong also highlighted the safety attributes of the new M7. In addition, the M9 full-size SUV will also be launched at the end of the year.

The launch of new cars is very important for the international community to boost sales. Since the beginning of this year, international sales have been under pressure. According to the production and sales data of Celestial, the sales of Celestial cars in July and August this year dropped by 45.69% and 67.52% year-on-year, which contributed to the year-on-year decline in sales in the first eight months of this year. The reporter learned from the Celestial Securities Department that in its production and sales express, the source of Celestial automobile sales is mainly from the world.

"In the first quarter, the promotion of the automobile industry caused users to have a wait-and-see mood. The user’s expectation that the M5 version will be released in the second quarter has a certain impact on the sales of existing models." Cyrus explained the reason for the decline in sales in the first half of the financial report.

AITO WeChat official account also stopped disclosing monthly delivery this year. According to the scattered data, AITO delivered 4,585 new cars in April this year, 5,629 in May and 5,018 in August, and there is no good news that the monthly delivery has exceeded 10,000. Compared with last August, the delivery volume of the industry exceeded 10,000 vehicles, reaching a peak of 12,000 vehicles in October.

According to the data of the Association, in the ranking of wholesale sales of new energy passenger cars in August this year, Sailis sold 5,018 vehicles, which did not rank among the 20, lagging behind the new car-making forces with monthly sales exceeding 10,000, such as Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an, Ideality, Weilai, Zero Run, Tucki and Nezha.

While the sales volume problem is anxious, Cyrus and Huawei have not tasted the sweetness in performance since the delivery. In 2022, thanks to the higher selling price of M5 and M7 and the increase in sales volume, the revenue of Cyrus doubled year-on-year. However, due to the increase in sales expenses and investment in R&D, the loss doubled year-on-year, reaching 3.832 billion yuan. In the first half of this year, Cyrus did not turn losses, and its revenue also decreased by 11.14% year-on-year.

It is also doubtful how much performance increment the car business can bring to Huawei. In 2022, Huawei’s smart car solution business revenue was 2.077 billion yuan, accounting for only 0.3% of the total revenue. If the cumulative investment of smart car solution BU is 3 billion US dollars, the business is still losing money. In the first half of this year, the smart car solution business revenue was 1 billion yuan, equivalent to half of last year’s annual revenue, and it seems to be standing still.

Yu Chengdong is under a lot of pressure whether it can bring the sales volume of the industry together and set a benchmark for Huawei’s car business. Since the beginning of this year, Yu Chengdong has been a frequent platform for the world, and its Weibo has twice mentioned that it has spent a lot of money on the new M7 model, saying that this model has "newly invested 100 million yuan to upgrade its interior and exterior" and "spent 500 million yuan to upgrade and build it". In July, Yu Chengdong warmed up the new M7 at the exchange meeting with distributors and suppliers, and in August, he appeared at Chengdu Station to promote the model.

Regarding the sales volume, Yu Chengdong previously responded that the sales volume is only the result of a certain development stage, and what is reflected behind it is actually the relationship with users. Due to lack of experience and experience, I took some detours. At this time, I need to give full play to my own advantages, be determined, and insist on making the ultimate products. Yu Chengdong revealed that in the face of external shocks, the company will speed up improvement, such as optimization in retail, service, delivery and other fields this year, and at the same time optimize the mechanism, increase unannounced visits to stores and other means to enhance the overall service capacity.

Adjustment of cooperative relationship

Since the beginning of this year, it has been frequently speculated that Huawei is devoting itself to building cars, and there are even rumors that Huawei BU wants to seek independence. The root cause of the rumors is that Huawei’s car business has not brought obvious increase and its development prospects are still unclear. In fact, outside Celeste, which has the deepest cooperation with Huawei, many car companies are considering cooperation with Huawei, and the cooperation relationship has undergone adjustment.

At present, the cooperation between Huawei and car companies is divided into three categories, namely vertical parts supply, HI(HuaweiInside) and Huawei Intelligent Selection. HI mode provides full-stack smart car solutions for car companies, and Huawei Intelligent Selection mode is deeply involved in product definition, styling design, marketing and user experience. The cooperation depth of these three models is from shallow to deep.

In the cooperation between car companies and technology manufacturers, who has the "soul" is a controversial issue, especially for Huawei, which has always been strong in product control, car companies will inevitably choose carefully. Some auto industry analysts told reporters that with the competition of new energy vehicles entering the second half, profits will gradually tilt towards electronicization and intelligence, and automakers are wary of cooperation with technology manufacturers.

In March this year, Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an AH8 project changed its HI cooperation mode with Huawei and changed it into a component supplier mode. AH8 will be independently developed by Ai ‘an. Some car companies have made two preparations. In April this year, the cooperation mode between BAIC Extreme Fox and Huawei changed from HI mode to intelligent car selection mode. At the same time, BAIC started its own research. At the end of August, Beiqi polar fox koala opened for pre-sale, and this model is positioned as the world’s first smart parent-child car. The reporter learned from Beiqi Blue Valley Securities Department that koala has no cooperation with Huawei. In addition, Chery, Jianghuai and Huawei have cooperated in car selection. Among them, Chery and Huawei have jointly launched a number of smart electric vehicles, and Chery is also developing an independent new energy brand iCAR.

Huawei is aware of the challenges it faces. At the "China Electric Vehicle committee of 100 Forum 2023" in April this year, Yu Chengdong said frankly that among domestic partners, new forces are unlikely to choose Huawei intellectually, international giants will not choose it for some reason, and traditional car companies will not choose it if they are afraid of losing their souls, which makes Huawei face great challenges.

Even in the face of the dynamic adjustment of the cooperative relationship with car companies, in recent years, when Huawei emphasized the stability of cash flow and gave up heavy assets to enter the automobile production, Huawei still responded many times and denied the path of building cars independently. At the beginning of this year, Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of HUAWEI, issued a decision announcement, stressing that "Huawei" or "Huawei" should not be used in vehicle promotion and appearance, and the time limit of "Huawei does not build cars" should be extended by five years.

Under this circumstance, in the limited cooperation with car companies, how Huawei can achieve the maximum benefit and the most ideal commercialization goal has become a core issue. In August, it was reported that Huawei made strategic adjustments to its BU business to reduce investment in non-core business and put money to the cutting edge. However, Huawei officials did not respond to this news.

In terms of business strategy, in the foreseeable time, the high probability of asking the world will still be the most important force point of Huawei’s car business. The new M7 and M9, which will be released on the 12th, will become the biggest concern of the international community in the second half of the year.

Original title: Q will release the new M7 model. How long will Huawei "build a car" window?