Recently, the major auto giants began to appear a very special trend, that is, the major auto giants no longer build cars well, in turn began to build large-scale mobile phones, before we discussed the problem of Geely to make mobile phones, and now there are auto companies to enter the mobile phone market, and this time the owner is Weilai? Does WEILAI Auto really want to make a mobile phone? When mobile phone manufacturers enter the automobile industry on a large scale, what is the way the auto giants play mobile phones in turn? What do we think?
First, Weilai wants to do the opposite of the mobile phone?
Zhongxin Jingwei, February 28 -- The dust has finally settled on Weilai's listing in Hong Kong. On the 28th, NIO announced that it had passed the hearing of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and obtained approval for the secondary listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The co-sponsors are Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and CICC. Class A ordinary shares are expected to commence trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on 10 March 2022.
However, the most interesting thing about Weilai is not the secondary listing, but Weilai wants to build a mobile phone, just recently according to the report of the Oriental Wealth Network, recently, there are many certified bloggers who broke the news that Weilai intends to enter the mobile phone industry. Breaking news pointed out that Weilai's mobile phone department has recently made a lot of moves, and the funds are still continuing to increase investment, and the project is currently in the initial stage of research.
In response to the above news, Weilai Automobile also made an official response: "There is no information to disclose at present, and further information will be communicated with you." ”
Do not deny or admit, this can often represent an attitude, and according to the report of the Investment China Network: there are three tipping points:
First, Yin Shuijun, the former president of Meitu Mobile Phone, joined NIO and was responsible for the mobile phone line;
Second, Weilai intensively released hardware and product positions on Liepin 1 month ago, designing "smart hardware", "mobile phones" and "vehicle-machine interconnection";
Third, sources from Weibo said that Weilai is indeed building mobile phones, and its office location is excellent in Qianhai, Futian District, Shenzhen.
Although Weilai refused to respond positively to the speculation of "making mobile phones", combined with the information of Liepin.com, the new project covers a 120k * 14 salary intelligent hardware product manager, a 150k car-machine interconnection product expert; an 80k intelligent hardware brand visual designer, etc. Weilai does have a hammer in doing "hardware projects other than car building".
Not only these media, securities daily also recently issued a similar report, "securities daily" quoted a person familiar with the matter said, "after the year there are more than 100 new offers, in the near future in Shenzhen is expected to add more than 200 R & D jobs." The above-mentioned person also revealed that Weilai's mobile phone business is determined to do, and the planning is earlier than xiaomi announced before the car, and the project is currently in the initial debugging stage. Yin Shuijun, former president of Meitu Mobile Phone, joined in and led the mobile phone business of Weilai.
"Securities Daily" reporter checked the third-party recruitment website and learned that Weilai is indeed recruiting staff including wireless test engineers, communication test engineers, BSP test engineers and other staff who are strongly related to the mobile phone business. However, as of press time, Weilai did not disclose more information to this reporter, only said, "There is no information to disclose at present, and further information will be communicated with you." ”
The industry generally believes that Weilai Automobile's mobile phone will probably be a high probability event. This will also be another car company competing in the mobile phone industry after Geely Automobile Li Shufu entered the mobile phone field.
In fact, although there are still many uncertainties in Weilai mobile phones, from the current point of view, car companies have almost become a general trend in the mobile phone market, and Apple CEO Cook has pointed out that the car is the ultimate form of mobile devices. Smart cars or will become another major smart terminal after the smart phone, the analysis believes that the intelligent function of the car, but also need to be coordinated and interconnected with the mobile phone, but the data of the intelligent car manufacturers, do not want to flow into the external mobile phone manufacturers, which may also be the main reason for the car companies to "make mobile phones".
Second, why do car manufacturers want to build mobile phones if they are not good at building cars?
Previously, we have repeatedly discussed the entry of mobile phone manufacturers into the field of automobile manufacturing, Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, OPPO and Sony have announced that they have cut into the new energy vehicle track, some personally made cars, and some deeply cultivated the field of new energy vehicle technical support. However, the current reverse entry of automobile manufacturers is somewhat inexplicable and wonderful, after all, car manufacturers have always been considered to be relatively heavy enterprises, such heavy companies have chosen to build cars, people still feel strange, how should we analyze this matter?
First of all, car manufacturers may also be helpless to build mobile phones. We said earlier that Tim Cook, the head of Apple, once said that the car is the ultimate form of mobile devices, so shouldn't it be normal to reverse the manufacture of lower-level devices from the ultimate form? After all, friends who have studied physics know that it is relatively easy for an object to change from a high potential energy state to a low potential energy state, and it is also logical to transfer from a high-tech density automobile industry to a low-tech density mobile phone industry in the industrial chain.
Of course, logic is only one aspect, we still have to use data to speak, or to say that the owner of this time Weilai Automobile, last year, Weilai Automobile released three quarterly report data show that Weilai achieved revenue of 9.81 billion yuan, an increase of more than 16% month-on-month, and the net loss attributable to common shareholders was 2.86 billion yuan, which was higher than market expectations. Nio's vehicle gross margin in the third quarter was 18%, down from 20.3% in the second quarter, and the gap between Tesla's gross profit margin of 30.5% in the same period was obvious. At the same time, we look at the sales data, this year's new energy vehicle sales in January Weilai Automobile fell by 7.9% month-on-month, people familiar with the capital market actually know that from the loss data, profit data, sales data, Weilai Automobile is difficult to give the capital market a satisfactory answer.
In such a situation, Weilai Automobile urgently needs a story to tell in the past, so that the capital market is willing to pay for Weilai Automobile, compared to the high cost and relative difficulty of making cars, it is undoubtedly much easier to make mobile phones, since it is so easy, Weilai may create mobile phones in a short period of time, so as to give the market more stories, so that Weilai mobile phones are more acceptable?
Secondly, deep bundling is actually what Weilai wants to do most. Before we analyzed Geely to make mobile phones when repeatedly emphasized the importance of smart cars, smart cars, intelligent spaces, indeed with the popularity of automatic driving, the car will become a completely intelligent carrier tool, in that case, to find an effective market connection point is very important, mobile phones undoubtedly become the most important market connection point, so in this context, Weilai automobile mobile phone is actually to achieve the connection between mobile phones and intelligent vehicles.
At the same time, we from the user's point of view, the current any person has actually become a member of the digital survival, everyone actually takes the mobile phone as their own digital organ, for most people, let everyone not watch TV every day is very simple, but if you do not look at the mobile phone, more than 1 hour there are many people fidgeting, if more than 3 hours many people will feel very uncomfortable, this is actually the importance of mobile phones for a person. In such a situation, Weilai's idea is actually very simple, which is to use the mobile phone as a link to achieve a deep binding between a person and a car.
And Weilai has always been benchmarking high-end models such as BBA, from the perspective of high-end models, Weilai in the absence of Tesla's high-end technical advantages, these years of brand strategy are Haidilao-style intimate service, its target customer base are rich high-net-worth users, in this case, with mobile phones to further bundle users and themselves will effectively help Wei to achieve further high-viscosity and strong ties, which is the core of Weilai's large-scale layout of the mobile phone market business exploration.
Third, does Weilai really have a drama to make mobile phones? Although we said earlier that Weilai must do mobile phones, and the business logic of Weilai to make mobile phones, we still have to return to a core question, which is whether Weilai really has a drama to make mobile phones?
Objectively speaking, although there is a chance but it is not easy, this logic and we said this problem when discussing Dong Mingzhu's vigorous development of Gree mobile phones, although from your own corporate point of view, it is necessary to do mobile phones, but it is necessary and really can do a good job or two completely different concepts, why say so? This is because the logic of the mobile phone market and the automobile market is completely different, the mobile phone market whether it is marketing or product channels are unique, for the automobile companies may have certain advantages in the core technology, for example, Weilai still has advantages in the field of intelligent control systems and user interaction services, but Weilai does not have the design, research and development capabilities and layout channels of the mobile phone industry, in such a case, it is difficult to say whether Weilai mobile phone can be accepted by the market.
At the same time, the current Chinese mobile phone market is not the kind of state of opportunities everywhere, Huawei, millet, glory, OPPO, etc. have become an absolute head, in this case, Weilai's mobile phone is actually not obvious in terms of brand power, Geely do mobile phones are good in that there is Meizu to support, Weilai wants to be from scratch may not be so easy.
Therefore, we can understand the current Weilai mobile phone, but whether it can be done well may still be a huge unknown.