Huawei and Cyrus: Is strange bedfellows still in the same boat?
[car home Industry] Recently, the news that Celeste Huawei has stopped production of SF5 has been widely circulated. Many users said that they had been told by offline stores that (|) no longer accepted reservations. Not long ago, AITO, a high-end new energy brand jointly built by Huawei and Celeste, was released, and the first model of the new brand was listed on the market. This caused concern about the fate of Cyrus.
"The Celestial brand will not withdraw from the market. As long as users have demand, we will produce and deliver it." After an exclusive conversation with Zhou Lin, executive deputy general manager of Jin Kang Celeste Science and Technology Center and general manager of product line, car home got this definite answer.
In the face of the constantly fermenting public opinion, Cyrus recently posted on its official social platform that "Cyrus SF5 will continue to accept user orders." Despite the official clarification, with the new brand AITO, the future development fate of the Celeste brand is worrying. Since the announcement of its entry into the automobile industry, Huawei has always been accompanied by controversy, and the future of Cyrus, which is closest to Huawei, naturally concerns the industry.
"Zhou Lin, Executive Deputy General Manager and General Manager of Product Line of Jin Kang Sailisi Science and Technology Center"
■Cyrus will not disappear.
Sailis SF5 is the first model that Xiaokang (parent company of Sailis) cooperates with Huawei. When it came out in April, 2021, it was rumored that the order number of Celestial was refreshed several times: "The order number was broken by 3,000 vehicles in two days" and "the national order number exceeded 10,000 vehicles in one month". It is based on the high attention at the initial stage of the release that the outside world has high expectations for the sales volume of Sellers SF5 in the terminal.
According to the latest data of the Federation, the sales volume of Sailis SF5 in 2021 (April-November) is only 7080 vehicles. According to car home, it is partly because of the slow delivery. Due to Huawei’s high technical requirements, the running-in of quality control between the two parties has a certain impact on the climbing of production capacity.
"Source: Federation; Watchmaking: car home Industry Group "
"In this process, Huawei applied some concepts in the field of mobile phones and ICT, and provided more information on how to complete product quality control standards completely." Zhou Lin said, "A large number of mobile phones need to ensure complete and consistent quality standards, and the number of them on the market far exceeds that of cars, so Huawei’s quality control standards are more detailed than cars."
As for why the news that Celeste SF5 stopped production came out, Zhou Lin attributed it to the fact that the promotion of new brand models needed to be tilted in resources, which caused some misunderstanding to the outside world. "Due to the shortage of chips, due to the consideration of ensuring the timeliness of user delivery, the reservation will not be accepted for a few days, avoiding that the order cycle will take two or three months or longer to deliver, and users may complain. Now, with the solution of this problem, the reservation channel has been reopened."
Car home found on Celestial App that at present, Celestial Huawei can still place an order normally, and users can choose 1000 yuan’s intentional deposit or 10,000 yuan.
In fact, the negative emotions of Celestial SF5 users stem from Celestial’s closure of direct stores and the "separation" of Huawei brand from SF5. After all, Celestial SF5 withdrew from all the experience centers of Huawei overnight after its appearance, and the posters in the store have been switched from Celestial Huawei’s smart selection SF5 to AITO Media M5. When car home visited the Shanghai Sailisi direct store, he also found that the store was being rebuilt or even closed. The sales said, "We have moved to the AITO user center, and the pre-sales and after-sales are integrated."
"Photo by car home: The changes before and after a Celeste store in Shanghai"
It is not uncommon to complete the model change and upgrade within one year in the current technical iteration of smart electric vehicles. Even the new force of "Wei Xiaoli" can’t avoid the pit of complaints, and old users often feel that they have been "cut leeks". However, in just eight months, it is the first time that a newly established brand has switched to another brand.
In order to appease the old users, Sailis posted on its official social platform on January 5, "For the users who have already delivered, Sailis promised to upgrade the lifetime warranty of the whole vehicle and range extender in addition to the 8-year/160,000-kilometer warranty of the three-power system promised earlier, and the first owner can get an additional discount of 10,000 yuan on the basis of the rights and interests of the schedule within four years." However, the owner of Celeste SF5 needs to go to AITO brand store for after-sales maintenance.
Zhou Lin also clearly told car home, "Sailis is still Sailis, and AITO is a brand-new high-end smart car brand with the high assistance of Huawei. The two brands will continue to enrich their product matrix and new models will come out constantly. This is a product pedigree evolved under two brands of an enterprise."
It is expected that at the end of February this year, the M5 will start the delivery of the first car owners. Regarding the follow-up vehicle planning of AITO brand, Zhou Lin revealed, "It is expected that a new large SUV will be launched at the end of the second quarter or the beginning of the third quarter in 2022, and it can be delivered by the end of this year. Since then, there will be a pure electric version of the M5. At the same time, new models launched in 2023 are also being prepared in an orderly manner. "
■Competition between Cyrus and AITO brand?
Although Celestial’s response put an end to the rumors of the suspension of production of SF5, it did not completely dispel the doubts about the future direction of Celestial SF5 and even the brand.
The insiders believe that Huawei has shifted its focus to the newly listed model M5, and stopping SF5 is a timely stop loss in a sense. However, some analysts pointed out that there are some differences in the positioning, selling prices and target groups of the two models, which may be complementary.
After the official listing of M5, some potential consumers were diverted to M5 on a large scale under the guidance of sales due to the temporary suspension of sales of Celestial SF.
Gwan Chin (a pseudonym), a user around car home, bought the SF5 of Celeste Huawei Smart Choice in early December. Because the sales promised to deliver the car in one week, Gwan Chin sold the gas car at home. Unexpectedly, after waiting for two weeks, the sales told him that the car had been discontinued and recommended him to add money to buy a new brand M5.
According to the official, M5 has been on the market for three days, and the large order has exceeded 2,000 units. Will Sellers SF5 be substantially marginalized by the market?
From the perspective of product strength, the M5 of AITO is indeed remarkable. Among them, Huawei’s HarmonyOS intelligent cockpit is the biggest highlight of the M5. Only with the opening of HarmonyOS system, will this advantage be leveled by more models equipped with HarmonyOS smart cockpit in the future? In Zhou Lin’s view, AITO has taken the first-Mover advantage at the time node.
"It was originally planned that the mass production time of Huawei’s HarmonyOS smart cockpit product was September 2022. With the deep cooperation between Huawei and Celeste, this product can be mass-produced about one year in advance. At present, the HarmonyOS smart cockpit mentioned by friends on the market is not a complete cockpit concept, similar to the cooperation mode of the traditional car Tier 1. "
In the mode of cooperation, Huawei’s deep participation has obviously gone far beyond other automobile projects. If Cyrus SF5 is Huawei’s adopted son, then the world M5 is more like Huawei’s own son.
Nowadays, Huawei has put more thoughts into the pre-planning and product design of AITO brand, even into product marketing and factory transformation. Especially in the research and development and adaptation of intelligent cockpit in HarmonyOS, Huawei has devoted more human resources.
"Since March this year, the Huawei team has gradually intervened in various workshops and links, including the R&D team. At present, there are four or five hundred people." Zhou Lin revealed.
As for whether the follow-up Sailis can only use its own channels, there is also uncertainty about whether it can re-enter Huawei’s intelligent car selection system. After all, unlike other auto companies’ direct stores, Huawei has limited area allocated for exhibition cars. With the release of the second new model of AITO this year, how much resources can Huawei give to Celeste? How to avoid internal competition among brands is a problem that Cyrus must think about at the moment when various car companies are grabbing the window period of smart electric vehicles.
"We give the choice to the users," Zhou Lin said frankly. "Celeste and AITO brands will have their own brand positioning and target customer groups, and the two brands will be differentiated. At present, there is only one model under each brand, and the system is not fully established. It will be gradually improved in the later stage."
■Xiaokang doesn’t want to just be a foundry.
Under the concern of where the Celeste brand will go, the outside world also believes that Huawei will "build a car" by taking advantage of the factory and qualification of Xiaokang shares.
Today’s Huawei, although verbally claiming "no cars", has indirectly declared its series layout and actions that Huawei does not only want to be limited to Bosch in the era of smart electric vehicles.
On December 23, 2021, at Huawei’s flagship new product launch conference in winter, Huawei walked to the stage for the first time from behind the scenes of the automobile industry. Yu Chengdong said apologetically that he had caught a cold, but he spent more than 30,000 words to introduce the M5, but Cyrus never appeared in front of the stage.
Yu Chengdong said, "AITO M5 integrates Huawei’s industrial design, engineering technology, system software and HarmonyOS’s ecological advantages." Selis is rarely mentioned between the lines, and people in the industry feel that this car is infinitely close to Huawei’s "pro-son" except for not hanging Huawei’s logo.
"But this does not mean that Xiaokang has become a Huawei foundry." Zhou Lin emphasized that with Huawei’s help, AITO’s first model, the M5, was manufactured into the whole value chain of users’ cars, and Cyrus was responsible for R&D, manufacturing, delivery, service and creating the whole life cycle car experience. Huawei is deeply involved in product definition, quality control and channel sales. The two sides give play to each other’s strengths.
"When the smart ecology collides with the automobile industry, there will be many new explorations and ways." At present, Huawei’s cooperation with car companies has defined two modes: First, Huawei Inside mode. At present, Huawei provides autonomous driving solutions to three cooperative car companies, namely BAIC, Changan and Guangzhou Automobile, to support them to build their own sub-brands; Second, Huawei’s BU business provides parts and solutions to car companies.
AITO M5 is a brand-new cooperation mode, which is independent of the above two modes: Huawei is not only a component supplier, but also the industrial design team of Huawei BU.
"If someone says that we are a foundry, why doesn’t Huawei buy a factory itself?" In the conversation, I can feel the injustice in Zhou Lin’s heart. "Huawei originally made mobile phones, but it didn’t know much about the automotive field. The design standards of automobiles have always been dominated by us, but Huawei’s specialties in the ICT field, such as communication and cockpit information security, will be deeply dominant."
In Zhou Lin’s view, in addition to Huawei’s empowerment, Cyrus also has its own core technology, which is more focused on the research and development of new energy technologies and manufacturing quality (five boutique platforms+core three-power technology+Industry 4.0 smart factory). If the M5 can maintain its leading position in the market, it is not the strength of a single product point, but the joint efforts of both parties to open the era of smart cars for users, which is the core that distinguishes it from other models.
Undoubtedly, Cyrus’ initial intention is to use Huawei to improve his brand image. Before the cooperation with Huawei, the industry knew little about Cyrus. After taking the "express train" of Huawei, the share price of the parent company of Cyrus Xiaokang soared from 17 yuan/share in early 2020 to the highest 83 yuan/share.
However, after the release of M5, the capital market quickly gave feedback to Xiaokang shares: it fell more than 7% that day and fell for two consecutive days, then continued to fall, and closed at 52.56 yuan/share on January 7. Huawei still spends a lot of energy and resources on the new car of AITO brand, but Cyrus is busy with the production and after-sales of SF5.
Will Cyrus reconsider its cooperation with Huawei? The insiders think it is difficult to give an answer. "Objectively speaking, the cooperation with Huawei has brought a high degree of attention to Xiaokang and also brought a sharp rise in the stock price." The data shows that in the first three quarters of 2021, the company achieved a total operating income of 11.45 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24%, but the net profit returned to the mother was-1.083 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 49%.
In-depth cooperation with Huawei can almost be said to be the only option for Cyrus at present. Xiaokang also stressed at the investment exchange meeting on January 7 that "the cross-border cooperation between the company and Huawei is in-depth and successful, and the two sides have invested heavily, and there is no reason for not cooperating."
At present, it is a top priority for Cyrus to cooperate well with Huawei and try to polish products and make delivery. At the AITO brand launch conference, Sailis officially put forward a slogan that seems a bit difficult now-to become the TOP3 of the global new energy vehicle within five years. In Zhou Lin’s view, with the advantages of both parties and the continuous optimization of the new product system, we can reach the breakthrough level of the sales model. "Let everything go to time!" (Text/car home Peng Fei)