What is Huawei’s intention to win the trademark ＂ask the world＂

Some people speculate that winning the "ask the world" trademark is the first step for Huawei to build a car alone. This possibility is slim.

There have been different opinions about whether Huawei will build a car alone. I thought that Ren Zhengfei reiterated at the end of March that Huawei would not build a car, which was the end of this case. However, Huawei seems to be testing it on the edge of building a car alone recently.

At the beginning of this month, the information of China National Intellectual Property Administration Trademark Office showed that the AITO trademark still belongs to Cyrus, but the Wenjie trademark has been taken by Huawei, which triggered a new speculation about Huawei’s car-making.

However, not long ago, at the off-line ceremony of the 100,000 th mass production car, Yu Chengdong made it clear: "Huawei does not build cars alone, but builds cars with car companies, builds good cars and builds the best cars." Yu Chengdong is a firm car maker in Huawei. Even he said that "Huawei will not build cars alone". It seems that Huawei will not end up in a short time.

In this case, what does Huawei want to "ask the world" trademark for?

What does Huawei want with the "Wen Jie" trademark?

Looking back at this entanglement between Huawei and the automobile industry, 2019 is a key time node. In that year, Huawei clearly defined the strategy of "not making cars" and positioned itself as "smart car ‘ Incremental component ’ Supplier ",and set up the BU department of smart car solutions to develop incremental components such as autonomous driving software, computing and connection technology. Xu Zhijun is the highest person in charge of this business.

The following year, Huawei released ——Huawei Inside, a smart car solution. In this mode, Huawei only provides technical support for car companies, and cooperates with car companies to customize and develop functions such as intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit. The overall design of cars is still dominated by car companies.

In 2021, Huawei launched a smart car selection model. Under this model, Huawei will participate in the definition and design of automobile products and incorporate products into Huawei channel sales.

In 2022, models such as Wujie M5 and Extreme Fox Alfa S HI were listed one after another, and these two routes ushered in market tests respectively. The first polar fox Alpha S HI with Huawei HI mode sold just over 10,000 vehicles last year, far below the sales target of 40,000 vehicles. Changan Aouita, which also adopted this model, started delivery at the end of last year, and the market response has been flat so far; As for the AH8 and other models that Huawei cooperated with GAC Ai ‘an, not only were they not mass-produced today, but they were once terminated by the cooperation. At present, Wang Jun, who is in charge of Huawei’s HI model, has been suspended, and the prospect of HI is bleak.

On the other hand, M5, a product in Huawei’s smart car selection mode, surprised the market as soon as it was delivered in March last year. It took only six months to achieve a monthly sales volume of over 10,000, creating a sales record of over 10,000 for a single model of a new brand car. The success of the first battle in the world has made car companies begin to believe that Huawei can help car companies build good cars, which is the olive branch that later Jianghuai, Chery and other car companies threw at Huawei.

However, this year’s media industry is gradually showing signs of decline. From January to May, the retail sales of media industry were 4,469 vehicles, 3,521 vehicles, 3,625 vehicles, 2,437 vehicles and 5,629 vehicles respectively, with a cumulative sales volume of 19,700 vehicles, with an average monthly sales volume of less than 4,000 vehicles, while the number of media industry channels reached 1,000, which means that the average monthly sales per store is less than 4 vehicles.

Feeling the crisis, Huawei began to inject "Chinese content" into the world of inquiry, so the logo of "HUEWEI asked the world" appeared. Many people think that putting Huawei’s trademark in front of the world of inquiry is the bottom line for Yu Chengdong to test Ren Zhengfei’s strategy of "not making cars", but Huawei’s action can also be understood as follows: through the exposure of Huawei’s brand in the model, more consumers will be induced to choose the world of inquiry, so as to save the precarious sales of the world of inquiry.

Of course, as we all know, the logo of "HUAWEI asks the world" was quickly removed, and Yu Chengdong was criticized for "abusing Huawei brand in propaganda".

This may be one of the reasons why Huawei recently received the trademark "Wen Jie".

Xu Zhijun criticized Yu Chengdong for "abusing Huawei’s brand", which may have the intention of snuffing out Yu Chengdong’s idea of making cars, but at the same time, this statement also revealed Huawei’s concern: Huawei is now a mature international brand, and the world of inquiry is still a "green hand". If Huawei is openly tied up with the world of inquiry, once the product of inquiry is thrown into the street, it will inevitably add insult to the brand of Huawei, just as a hot comment on the Internet said, "Huawei makes cars well." Therefore, Huawei’s top management will never allow the world to call Huawei brand. However, products endorsed by Huawei are bound to be more easily recognized by consumers. Therefore, Huawei will take over the "Wenjie" trademark, so that the products can be helped by Huawei while avoiding the direct exposure of Huawei brands.

Huawei’s cooperation with Chery, Jianghuai, Beiqi New Energy and other car companies is in full swing, and the release of new models is just around the corner, so publicity and channels should be put on the agenda. Yu Chengdong put forward at the committee of 100 of China Electric Vehicle in April this year: "At present, it is produced by Cyrus, and Chery, BAIC and JAC will join soon. If each car company adopts different brands, our marketing, service and retail will be very complicated, so we hope to adopt common elements and brands."

Now, the trademark of "ask the world" is 100% owned by Huawei, so Huawei can link car companies with the core of ask the world and unify new models under the brand matrix of ask the world. At that time, no matter which car company Huawei cooperates with, it will hang the logo of ask the world. And this is also in line with Yu Chengdong’s original idea: "Do ‘ HUAWEI asks the world ’ At the same time, the planning of smart cars produced by Huawei and different car companies does not conflict with each other. "Some make SUVs, some cars, some make MPVs, some make B+ cars, some make C-cars, and some make D-cars", "Together, there is a complete solution in a car system", "Make full use of production capacity and resources, and it will not.

Huawei is unlikely to build a car alone.

As for some people’s speculation, winning the "ask the world" trademark is the first step for Huawei to build a car alone. This possibility is slim. Not to mention that Ren Zhengfei and Yu Chengdong announced not long ago that they would not build cars alone. Judging from Huawei’s current situation and the current situation in the auto market, Huawei would not be stupid enough to build cars at this time.

First of all, Huawei’s cash flow is simply not enough to support him to build a car alone.

At the press conference of Huawei’s 2022 annual report, Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer, made it clear: "In 2022, the operation still faces great pressure." Last year, Huawei’s revenue shrank to 600 billion yuan, with a slight increase of 0.9% year-on-year. However, due to various replacement needs caused by the lack of spare parts, Huawei’s R&D investment reached an all-time high last year, which made Huawei’s profit drop rapidly to 35.6 billion yuan last year, a sharp drop of 68.7% year-on-year. Cash flow is naturally declining, with a year-on-year decrease of 26.9% to 176.3 billion.

At this time, Huawei, which is still in the cold winter, should obviously wrap up its cotton-padded jacket and devote all its efforts to developing chips, instead of gambling on the business of heavy assets and long return on investment. Don’t forget, the United States is still eyeing it on the other side of the ocean.

Secondly, the automobile field in China is too crowded to accommodate a Huawei car. A few days ago, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, mentioned at the China Automobile Chongqing Forum that the profitability of the automobile industry was further weakened. "We have seen more than 100 passenger car brands in China, and there are only two or three truly profitable electric car brands."

Moreover, the chairmen of Changan, GAC, Chery and other car companies all agree that China’s auto industry will undergo merger and reorganization in the future. By 2030, there may be only five mainstream car companies in the market, or even less than five. Yu Chengdong not only recognized this view, but also predicted that it would be difficult for car companies with an annual output of less than 5 million or even more than 10 million in the future to stand in the times. Now that they have realized the cruel status quo of the automobile industry, Yu Chengdong will certainly not advocate building cars alone and take such a big risk with Huawei’s insufficient cash flow at present. What’s more, if the industry has been developing according to the trend of "software defines cars", then IT is estimated that it will never be too late for an IT company like Huawei, which is based on software and trunking communication technology, to build a car, so why not go to this mixed water when the car market is so crowded?

Finally, there is a strong local protectionism in the automobile industry. Before that, the Hubei government gave hundreds of millions of financial subsidies to Dongfeng Motor, which is a typical case of local protection. At present, almost all the provinces and cities with solid industrial foundation and strong economic strength in China have already set up automobile plants, such as BYD, GAC and Tucki in Guangdong, SAIC, Tesla, Beijing Betting Ideal, Xiaomi and Hefei in Shanghai. It can be said that the pattern of new energy vehicles in China has been basically set, and how many local governments have the strength and willingness to support Huawei? Or is Huawei willing to settle in Jiangsu, which is known as the "grave of making cars"?

The rumor that Huawei wants to build a car alone has developed to this day, and it should stop at the wise. Instead of guessing whether Huawei will build a car next, it is better to wait and see how Huawei’s smart car selection cooperation model with its new partners will bloom and bear fruit.