Another big factory entered the bureau to build cars!
Today, some media broke the news. An insider who came into contact with OPPO-related high-level people said: OPPO will also start building cars! In response to this, netizens have said: “Xiaomi forefoot just announced that it will build a car, OPPO has followed suit”, “The car circle is getting more and more lively,” and “The mobile phone brand war has hit the car market.”
It was Chen Mingyong, the founder of OPPO, who was exploding to promote OPPO’s car-building plan, and Chen Mingyong has already found out and investigated the resources and talents of the industry chain. In the past few weeks, Chen Mingyong met with Zhu Wei, president of the China Passenger Car Division of CATL. It is said that the two sides had a good chat for several hours. CATL is one of the first domestic power battery manufacturers with international competitiveness.
An insider said: “OPPO is indeed doing research and understanding, but it has not yet formally established the project.”
In addition, Chen Mingyong took the initiative to visit China Automotive Research and other institutions with his team, and at the executive level, Wu Henggang, Vice President of OPPO Software Engineering, also participated.
Regarding the report on whether OPPO is building a car, the Beijing News Shell Finance has verified with OPPO. OPPO said that there is no internal response for the time being.
However, according to public information, OPPO Guangdong Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. has published an invention patent called “Internet of Vehicles Communication Equipment and Its Method”. The application date is September 2018. The patent mainly provides a kind of Internet of Vehicles ( V2X) Communication equipment and its method.
In fact, in December 2019, Chen Mingyong spoke at the “OPPO Future Technology Conference” in Shenzhen, saying that he had been thinking about making cars. But he also said that “if the auto industry can’t make cars well in the next ten years, OPPO may make cars” and “it seems that there is no such possibility.”
Unexpectedly, only a year later, OPPO was rumored to be planning to build a car. It was revealed on the Internet that the location of the OPPO Automotive Division was in Chengdu.
Major manufacturers have entered the car industry
Recently, there are endless news about car making, such as Alibaba, Huawei, Baidu, 360, DJI and other companies.
Alibaba
Last year, Alibaba Group, SAIC Motor and Pudong New Area jointly created a high-end smart pure electric vehicle project “Zhiji Auto”. On January 13, 2021, Zhiji Automobile launched two mass-produced vehicles, namely, a smart pure electric sedan and a smart pure electric SUV, as well as the “IM Zhiji” brand.
Baidu
At the beginning of this year, Baidu and Geely Holding Group have reached a strategic cooperation. Jointly established a smart electric vehicle company-Jidu. Prior to this, Baidu has been committed to the development of technology in the field of auto-driving. The establishment of Jidu also means that Baidu’s identity has transformed from a software service provider to a vehicle manufacturer, and its core business has also transformed from To B to To C.
At the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2021, Baidu Apollo appeared as an independent exhibitor for the first time and launched the “Four Wisdom” smart car solutions, namely: “Smart Driving”, “Smart Cabin”, “Smart Map” and “Smart Map”. cloud”.
360
There are also 360 companies that have entered the game. According to the company’s search report, on April 26, Nezha Automobile announced that it had launched a D round of financing with a financing amount of about 3 billion yuan. The Internet security company 360 strategy led this round of financing. The specific amount has not been disclose. After completing all the investments, 360 is expected to become the second largest shareholder of Nezha Auto.
Dajiang
At the Shanghai Auto Show on April 19, DJI released related products, exhibiting intelligent solutions in driving scenarios such as DJI Intelligent Driving D80/D80+, DJI Intelligent Driving D130/D130+, and DJI Intelligent Parking. This is the first public appearance of DJI since its official announcement to enter the field of intelligent networked vehicles.
Skyworth Group
Skyworth Group, a leading enterprise in the TV field, held a press conference on April 27, officially announcing that Tianmei Auto will be renamed Skyworth Auto and will use the English name “Skyworth”. This is the first time Skyworth has discussed the development trend of smart cars and looks forward to the future of the industry.
Huawei
At the Shanghai Auto Show not long ago, Huawei launched the Polar Fox Alpha S Huawei HI version. Its smart cockpit, smart electric, smart network, radar, computing platform and other component systems are all provided by Huawei.
On April 20, in Huawei’s flagship store, Yu Chengdong, the head of Huawei’s consumer business, announced that Huawei Smart Selection officially launched the Cyrus SF5, and this model will enter Huawei’s stores and flagship stores. Regarding car sales, Yu Chengdong said that the Cyrus SF5 is not a PPT car and will be delivered in May.
Millet
And this year’s Xiaomi spring conference, the official announcement of the car attracted everyone’s attention.
At the end of March this year, Xiaomi officially announced that the car will be built. The first phase of investment is 10 billion yuan, and the investment is expected to be 10 billion US dollars in the next 10 years. On April 11th, on the live broadcast of Xiaomi’s 11th Anniversary “Mi Fan Festival”, Lei Jun responded to Xiaomi’s car building in the live broadcast room and also answered topics that fans are very interested in car building, such as Xiaomi’s first car. What exactly is it.
Regarding the car made by Xiaomi, Lei Jun said that Xiaomi has a certain accumulation in the automotive field, but the car has just been approved, so it will take at least three years for Xiaomi’s first car to be delivered to consumers.
Recently, Tang Daosheng, senior executive vice president of Tencent, publicly explained to the question whether Tencent builds a car or not: “Tencent has done something or not. In the early days, we did not make mobile phones, and now we will not make complete cars, but Will give car companies support in terms of software. “
Mobile phone manufacturers need new business growth points
In recent years, the global mobile phone top brands Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, vivo, and OPPO have accounted for most of the global smartphone market, and there is a huge gap in the shipments of other brands.
The global mobile phone shipment report for the first quarter of 2021 released by Strategy Analytics recently shows that the total shipment of smartphones reached 340 million units, a year-on-year increase of 24%, and the top five mobile phone brands have seen a certain increase in shipments. , However, “Others” fell by 23%.
For mobile phone manufacturers, in addition to market share, it also depends on actual profits.
On April 26, at the Huawei Developers Conference, Yang Haisong, vice president of Huawei’s consumer business software department, said that Apple’s market share was 13%, profit was 66%, and Samsung’s market share was 20%, and profit was 17%. The market share of China and other manufacturers is 67%, and the profit is only 17%.
The old LG mobile phones were brilliant. In 2008, the annual sales of LG mobile phones exceeded 100 million; in 2013, LG mobile phones reached the peak of their business, ranking third in the global market share, second only to Samsung and Apple.
However, public data shows that LG’s mobile phone business has ceased to be profitable since the first quarter of 2015. In the past six years, LG Electronics has accumulated a loss of nearly 5 trillion won (approximately 29.31 billion yuan). In order to stop losses, LG Electronics has adopted a variety of methods to recover profits, such as withdrawing from the domestic market in 2016 and shrinking the global market layout. On April 5, LG announced that it would gradually close its mobile phone business, which is expected to be completed on July 31 this year.
According to industry insiders, for mobile phone manufacturers, affected by various factors such as the epidemic, lack of cores, and the development of new technologies, pure mobile phone manufacturers need to make new breakthroughs if they want to continue to develop, and they need to find more new ones outside of the smartphone business. Business growth point.
Why do you choose to build cars?
Nowadays, users’ focus on automobiles is different from before. The automobile industry is also developing in the direction of electrification, intelligence, networking, and sharing, which means that there are more market space and development opportunities.
Lei Jun once said in a live broadcast that many parts of Xiaomi’s ecological chain are related to user experience, so this is a great advantage for Xiaomi Motors. At that time, Lei Jun also listed a few of his associations for future Xiaomi car applications:
- Install fresh air conditioning in the car
- Humidifier in the car
- Car comes with air purifier
- Ice water directly in the car
The People’s Daily once published an article “Building a Cross-Border Car, Looking Forward to Crossing a New Road”, stating that the major driving force of the big factory’s determination to build a cross-border car is threefold: capital, timing and conditions.
Wang Yu, executive deputy secretary-general of the China Productivity Promotion Center Association, once stated to China Electronics News that automobiles are a typical technology and capital-intensive consumable product with high technical content, which can bring higher added value and make breakthroughs in this field. It is more vulnerable to the attention of capital to achieve financing and fault tolerance.
However, when capital is optimistic, the timing is right, the conditions are available, and the money is not short of people, crossovers want to succeed in the smart electric vehicle industry, and there are also many challenges. In today’s accelerated transformation of the industry, rapid market growth, and explosive breakthroughs in new technologies, it is not easy to follow the rhythm, and it is also very challenging for crossovers.
Industry insiders said that mobile phone manufacturers have extensive experience in smart systems and software systems. Like Apple’s CarPlay, future mobile phone manufacturers may have a better and more complete interactive interactive experience with similar experiences. With the blessing of AI assistants, the UI experience will be better. Regarding the supply chain, the current industry leaders are relatively transparent, and local relevant departments are also actively communicating. I believe it will not be difficult for mobile phone manufacturers.
“The core difficulty lies in the combination of the mastery of key technologies for autonomous driving and the experience of traditional technologies.”
Write at the end
According to IDC’s 2020-2025 China’s new energy vehicle market sales and growth forecast released on December 3, China’s new energy vehicle market will usher in strong growth in the next five years. Among them, China’s new energy vehicle sales will also increase from 1.16 million in 2020 to 5.42 million in 2025.
In the domestic new energy market, the annual sales volume in 2020 will reach 1.25 million vehicles. According to industry insiders, despite the substantial decline in subsidies and the impact of the epidemic, the sales of new energy vehicles have risen instead of falling. This means that the new energy vehicle market has shifted from policy-driven to market-driven, and the market maturity is gradually improving.
Yiou Automobile also issued a document stating that the growth rate of China’s new energy vehicle market will remain at around 70% in the next two years. As the market share of new energy vehicles increases year by year, it is estimated that China’s new energy vehicle sales will account for more than 10% of the total vehicle sales in 2022.
In the future, the domestic new energy vehicle market is relatively clear, but there are also challenges for the large manufacturers that have entered the market.
The domestic new energy vehicle market share in 2020 shows that Tesla and Weilai, Ideal, Weimar, and Xiaopeng have more than 80% of their sales in the first half of 2020. Therefore, it is not easy for major manufacturers to enter the market and want to grab a piece of the cake.
Image source: Guangfa Securities Development Research Center, Chenglian Association
Now it seems that all kinds of companies squeeze into this track, which will undoubtedly bring more innovation and vitality. For example, Huawei, Baidu, DJI and other companies have launched automotive smart solutions.
On April 14, Xiaopeng officially released the world’s first mass-produced lidar smart car, Xiaopeng P5. The lidar comes from DJI products, and the domestic lidar has entered the “thousand yuan” era. In addition to the product blessings of various companies, new companies may be able to break the inherent market structure.
Are you planning to buy a car made by a mobile phone manufacturer? In addition to the automotive field, OPPO will also aggressively enter the chip industry this year.
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