Huawei cooperates with Jianghuai to build a car？ Yu Chengdong responded： Huawei is not building a car in person, or it is a smart choice mode.

The cooperation with Jianghuai Automobile (600418) has caused rumors of Huawei building cars to rise again.

Recently, according to official website of China Construction Group and the consortium of China Construction Sixth Bureau, the EPC project of Anhui Feixi New Energy Automobile Intelligent Industrial Park won the bid, with a bid amount of about 1.544 billion yuan. The project is located in Jianghuai Xingang Industrial Park, Xingang South District, Feixi County, with a total construction area of about 510,000 square meters. The main construction contents include punching and welding joint factory building, painting workshop, assembly workshop, office space, restaurant and related public auxiliary facilities.

China Construction Group said that after the project is completed, it will be used for Huawei and Jiangqi Group to jointly develop a new generation of high-end intelligent electric vehicles in Hefei.

There have been market rumors about the cooperation between Huawei and Jianghuai in building cars, but neither side has given a clear response.

On February 21st, Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of BG and CEO of BU, a smart car solution, told the The Paper reporter that Huawei did not build the car by itself, but cooperated through intelligent selection mode.

Jianghuai Automobile responded on the investor interaction platform that "the company and Huawei have always maintained a strategic cooperative relationship. All information should be subject to the announcement issued by the company. At present, the company has no information that should be disclosed but not disclosed."

Deep cooperation has long been a clue.

Although both sides have responded to rumors in a low-key manner, the deepening cooperation between Huawei and Jianghuai has long been a clue.

According to WeChat official account, the official WeChat of Feixi Publishing, on January 9, at the headquarters of Huawei Bantian Base, Yu Aihua, member of the Standing Committee of Anhui Provincial Party Committee and secretary of Hefei Municipal Party Committee, had in-depth discussions with Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, to jointly promote the progress of cooperation projects between Huawei Terminal and Jiangqi Group and Feixi County. The two sides agreed to fully implement the cooperation agreement, promote the project to be effective as soon as possible, and help Hefei build a new energy vehicle capital with world influence.

The article also mentioned that Huawei Terminal and Jiangqi Group (Jianghuai Automobile Group) have a good foundation for cooperation. Based on Huawei’s capabilities in the field of smart automobile components, the two parties will jointly develop a new generation of high-end smart electric vehicle platform technology in Feixi, and continue to bring consumers a better smart travel experience.

It is reported that there are currently three ways of cooperation between Huawei and car companies: the shallowest is to participate as an ordinary component supplier and sell spare parts such as HarmonyOS operating system and domain controller; The most frequently mentioned is Huawei inside(HI). Car companies are equipped with Huawei’s full-stack smart car solutions, which are jointly developed by Huawei and car companies, such as cooperation with BAIC Extreme Fox, Aouita and Guangzhou Automobile; The deepest binding between Huawei and car companies is the intelligent car selection model. Huawei will deeply participate in the design and definition of the whole vehicle, and at the same time provide the sales channels of Huawei stores, that is, the current way of cooperation between Cyrus and Huawei.

In the cooperation with Cyrus, Huawei deeply participated in vehicle design and R&D, sent thousands of employees to Cyrus, deeply participated in the project before the factory landed, and the wording of "jointly developing a new generation of high-end intelligent electric vehicles" all showed that the cooperation between Huawei and Jianghuai will be a smart car selection model or even a deeper cooperation model.

Prior to this, the two sides have cooperated in many fields.

In December 2019, Jianghuai and Huawei formally signed a comprehensive cooperation framework agreement and MDC platform project cooperation agreement, and carried out in-depth cooperation in the fields of smart car solutions, enterprise informatization, smart parks and smart factories. Among them, it includes the key cooperation in research and development of the core component of intelligent driving-vehicle computing platform, as well as cooperation in intelligent cockpit, intelligent electric, intelligent network connection and cloud services. In addition, JAC has also adopted Kirin chip and HarmonyOS operating system in the intelligent cockpit of Sihao and other products to jointly develop the automobile ecosystem.

Will you copy the next boundary?

In fact, as early as last year, news came out one after another that Huawei planned to cooperate with many domestic automobile brands in intelligent car selection business after its successful cooperation with Celeste AITO, and Jianghuai Automobile was one of them.

According to the delivery data, in January this year, 4,475 vehicles were delivered, and in 2022, the delivery volume exceeded 75,000 vehicles.

In January this year, there were some adjustments in Huawei’s car business. Wang Jun, president of Huawei’s car BU COO and intelligent driving solution product line, has been suspended, and Yu Chengdong will take over all the smart car business. However, Huawei said internally that it would not adjust the "HI" mode. However, it is also speculated that Huawei will make more inclinations to the smart car selection business.

Recently, in the cooperation with Cyrus, Huawei AITO changed its advertising rhetoric from "Huawei’s deep empowerment" to "Huawei’s overall leadership" to further highlight Huawei’s "branding" on the smart car. According to public information, in February this year, Yu Chengdong went to Cyrus headquarters several times to experience the new car.

In addition to Jianghuai Automobile, Huawei has also been reported to plan to cooperate with Chery, Extreme Fox and other automobile brands in smart car selection business. Among them, the cooperation plan between Chery and Huawei’s smart car selection was disclosed last year, and the two sides announced that they would launch a brand new high-end smart electric vehicle brand. It is reported that Chery and Huawei have planned at least five high-end smart electric vehicles.

Jianghuai had a pre-loss of 1.437 billion yuan last year.

In recent years, JAC has been deeply cooperating with Weilai Automobile and Volkswagen in recent years.

Volkswagen (Anhui), jointly established by JAC and Volkswagen, is the third joint venture of Volkswagen in China, in which JAC holds 25% shares. In addition, Volkswagen (China) Investment Co., Ltd. holds 50% shares of Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co., Ltd., and Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co., Ltd. is the controlling shareholder of Jianghuai Automobile.

In terms of cooperation with Weilai, Jianghuai Automobile has been providing OEM for Weilai since 2016. In December 2022, Jianghuai announced that it planned to acquire about 1.704 billion yuan of assets (including equipment and tooling assets) related to construction in progress and equipment installation projects held by Weilai, so as to further deepen the cooperative relationship with Weilai.

However, while cooperating with two well-known car companies, JAC still faces losses.

On January 30th, JAC released the announcement of 2022 annual performance pre-loss. According to the announcement, Jianghuai Automobile expects a net loss of about 1.437 billion yuan in 2022, compared with 200 million yuan in the same period last year.

Jianghuai Automobile said that due to the epidemic situation and chip shortage, the company sold 500,400 vehicles and chassis in 2022, down 4.54% year-on-year, and its main business in Mao Lijiao decreased by about 295 million yuan in the same period last year. In addition, its government subsidy in 2022 was about 1.203 billion yuan, a decrease of about 801 million yuan compared with the same period of last year.

Sales data show that in 2022, Jianghuai Automobile sold 500,400 vehicles, down 4.54% year-on-year. Among them, the sales volume of pure electric passenger cars was 193,000, a year-on-year increase of 44%.

It is not known whether JAC’s profitability can be improved after reaching in-depth cooperation with Huawei, but the stock price has reacted violently. On February 21st, Jianghuai Automobile rose nearly 8% to close at 17.35 yuan/share.

The Paper reporter Wu Yuli Ling Zhou

Original title: Huawei and Jianghuai cooperate to build a car? Yu Chengdong’s exclusive response: Huawei is not building a car in person, or it is a smart choice mode.