With NIO and Geely entering the mobile phone industry, are Xiaomi and Huawei’s escape routes blocked?

In real-time strategy games such as "StarCraft" and "Age of Empires", the "home exchange" operation is very common.

But games are games after all, and I didn’t expect that the automotive industry has also recently undergone a “change of ownership”. When Xiaomi and Huawei announced that they would aggressively attack the automotive industry, the leader of traditional domestic auto companies, Geely, and the leader of new forces, Weilai, also made an extreme “change of ownership” and entered the mobile phone industry one after another.

What exactly do they want to do? Let Kung Fu Auto show you.

(1) NIO and Geely are working together. Are they really going to make mobile phones?

As early as September last year, Geely established Hubei Xingji Times Technology Co., Ltd., whose main business category is the second-category value-added telecommunications services. At that time, everyone’s first reaction was that Geely was going to make mobile phones.

The company then signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, announcing its entry into the mobile phone field, and even Li Shufu himself witnessed the signing ceremony. In December last year, Li Shufu reduced his shareholding in the company from 55% to 6.77%, while Geely Group added 35.54% of its shares, and the company's registered capital increased from 80 million to 715 million yuan. This was a typical commercial operation, and many people interpreted it as a precursor to Geely's efforts.

Recently, it was reported that Geely's Star Era has started to contact Meizu to discuss acquisition matters, which is a typical Geely style. Because Meizu's annual shipments of mobile phones are only one or two million units, it cannot be compared with giants such as Xiaomi and Huawei. In the mobile phone industry that focuses on scale, there is no profit for scientific research. However, Meizu's own design, channels, and brand influence are still remarkable, and it can be regarded as a typical example of "small but beautiful" in the industry.

Geely is a domestic giant that is best at integrating resources. It made a lot of money by acquiring Volvo, Lotus and Proton, and also revitalized these major brands. After the recent acquisition of Lifan Motors, Geely quickly established a joint venture, Chongqing Ruilan Motors, to enter the battery swapping track, which can be described as "fast, accurate and stable", and completely revitalized Lifan.

Therefore, handing Meizu over to Geely is definitely a good thing, and it is likely to achieve a win-win situation. In fact, Geely has already started to frantically poach people from mobile phone manufacturers such as OPPO and Xiaomi, and is preparing to invest 10 billion to make a big splash in the mobile phone industry, and also let Xiaomi taste the taste of being poached by Geely before.

Compared with Geely, NIO is not slow at all. They hired Yin Shuijun, the former president of Meitu Mobile, to lead NIO's mobile phone business. In fact, NIO has issued more than 100 new offers since the beginning of the year, and it is said that more than 200 new R&D positions will be added in the near future, mainly recruiting imaging chip design engineers, BSP engineers, communication test engineers, etc., which are basically the most core businesses. NIO has also made it clear that it does not consider OEM.

Both of them have found people who are "knowledgeable" in the industry and are working hard to "recruit troops and horses". It can be seen that Geely and Weilai's plans to make mobile phones are not groundless, and both are ready to do a big job.

(2) Xiaomi is preparing for a big move, and Huawei is about to make a breakthrough?

The biggest difference between Xiaomi and Huawei is that Xiaomi has made a big announcement that it will build cars, but it seems to be focusing on resource integration. Huawei, on the other hand, has already begun to exert influence on the automotive industry, even though it has already stated that it will not build cars.

Xiaomi has claimed to build cars for a while, but there is still no sign of batteries, motors, and intelligent systems. The latest news is that it plans to "settle down" the factory in Beijing, but it is very likely that it will still be an OEM model in the early stage. Fans can't help it. A while ago, Xiaomi fans privately "released" the Xiaomi Auto 1, claiming that the range reached 700km, 0-100km acceleration in 4.5 seconds, and equipped with advanced intelligent driving functions, but it was only sold for 179,900 yuan. In the end, it was denied by the official. In fact, Xiaomi Auto is not expected to be mass-produced until at least 2024, and it is estimated that it will take a long time.

However, the inside information obtained by Kungfu Auto is quite interesting. That is, Xiaomi Auto has started to restrict its recruitment. Although it still recruits talents from all over the world, the proportion of recruitment in the same auto company is limited. For example, it can recruit people from Geely, but the total number cannot exceed 10%. It is said that the management is afraid that the R&D personnel will form factions. Another thing is that Xiaomi has started to ask some suppliers for quotations, but the units used in the quotations are very exaggerated. It is said that the supply volume expected by Xiaomi is twice that of Tesla, and much higher than Volkswagen and Aion. This is very exaggerated. Does Xiaomi really think it can sell more than Tesla?

But no matter what, it can be seen that Xiaomi has indeed begun to deeply intervene in the automotive industry.

Huawei's pace is much faster than Xiaomi's. In a previous interview, Richard Yu, head of Huawei's smart car business, boasted that 300,000 new cars would be sold through Huawei's channels in 2022. Huawei's online mall and authorized experience stores have already started to have models, and each car is equipped with at least 6 professional sales staff. Users' online reservations and test drives must be responded to within 2 hours. Not only has the new flagship model M5 entered the store, but the Seres model has also started to be sold. Huawei also promised that the two major brands, Polar Fox and Avita, will also be sold through Huawei channels in the future.

In terms of R&D, Huawei is committed to providing a full set of intelligent solutions to automakers. For example, the recently unveiled M5 uses Huawei's latest HUAWEI DriveONE pure electric drive extended range platform and Huawei smart cockpit. The Alpha S Huawei HI version equipped with Huawei LiDAR and advanced intelligent driving will also be launched soon.

Recently, it was reported that Volkswagen will cooperate deeply with Huawei in the field of intelligent driving to improve the intelligence level of the ID. family. This will be the first first-tier car company that Huawei has won, which will undoubtedly have a far-reaching impact on Huawei's business expansion.

(3) Has the collaboration between mobile phones and car computers become a general trend?

In fact, it is not without reason that Xiaomi and Huawei have entered the car manufacturing track, and Geely and Weilai have gone to make mobile phones. In fact, with the development of Internet technology, the coordination between mobile phones and car machines has become a general trend, which has caused great pressure on the leading companies.

Because mobile phones are at the forefront of electronic product market verification and software innovation, they often allow users to enjoy the innovative achievements of the Internet at the first time. In fact, the biggest change in the development of car systems in recent years is "mobileization". In the past, the car map could not provide real-time online navigation, but now it can; in the past, the recognition ability of the car system was limited, but now it has been improved, and it can recognize multiple dialects and can interact; in the past, it used small screens and low-end chips, but now it uses Qualcomm's high-end chips like mobile phones, and uses a large PAD-style screen, which greatly improves playability.

Sooner or later, the ecosystems of car computers and mobile phones will be unified. Car companies are entering the mobile phone market in the hope that they will not be left behind.

For Huawei and Xiaomi, the "basic market" is also unstable. Once the automotive industry is dominated by Geely or Weilai, and they define the automotive ecosystem, it will definitely backfire on the mobile phone industry. Especially since the price of cars is much higher than that of mobile phones, once the automotive industry forms a monopoly, and there is a wave of promotions where you buy a car and get a mobile phone for free, Huawei and Xiaomi may not be able to withstand it.

Therefore, they try their best to push into each other's territory, which is actually a helpless act, and also for the purpose of seeking larger living space.

(4) Kung Fu Clap

Mobile phone manufacturers want to make cars, and car manufacturers want to make mobile phones. The current "involution" has begun to cross borders. However, it is a good thing for consumers. After all, Xiaomi, Huawei, Geely, and Weilai are all giants. They are not doing cross borders casually, and they will definitely bring a lot of new ideas. Everyone just needs to wait and vote with their feet.

I don’t dare to buy the Xiaomi version of the car for the time being, but I am inexplicably looking forward to the Geely and NIO phones. After all, the risk of trial and error is much smaller.