Text/Lu Shiming
Executives "talk to each other" at the car launch conference, or it will become a normal state of the industry.
Not long ago, Huawei held the HarmonyOS Ecological Spring Communication Meeting and released a number of new products. At the press conference, Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, BG CEO, chairman of BU, Huawei’s smart car solution, and Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Automobile, released the first smart car, Zhijie S7, for the second time.
It is understood that the newly released Zhijie S7 has launched five models, among which S7 Ultra has been added as a high-end model. The official guide price is 249,800 to 349,800 yuan, and the price range is consistent with the old model.
Standing on the level of public opinion, the public doesn’t seem to be interested in the product itself, but what really makes people relish is Yu Chengdong’s series of remarks on "targeting" Xiaomi.
From the mobile phone stand to intelligent driving, Yu Chengdong’s "insinuation" of Xiaomi is familiar, just like the "routine" of the two companies at the mobile phone conference for many years.
However, the trend of executives of the two companies "talking to each other" from a distance has blown to a new battlefield this time, and the "grudges and enmities" between the two companies over the years will also stage a new story in the automobile market.
Yu Chengdong has never been soft on "friends". In this release, Yu Chengdong made many statements all the time, which can be said to be "tit for tat" with Xiaomi.
At the previous Xiaomi SU7 conference, Lei Jun once said: "I found that all the car manufacturers did not consider how to install the mobile phone bracket, and none of them worked well. We must make the best mobile phone bracket!"
At the S7 conference of Zhijie, Yu Chengdong said in a meaningful way: "I really don’t understand why many cars use mobile phone stands. Later, I understood that their car navigation performance is not good! We will let the mobile phone application get on the bus in full, and the powerful heart does not need a mobile phone bracket! "
In addition, Yu Chengdong also intentionally emphasized that the utilization rate of car navigation in HarmonyOS is as high as 99%, while the utilization rate of other car navigation is only 31%, and the gap is "very large".
Regarding Yu Chengdong’s remarks, Lei Jun issued a document in Weibo, saying: "At their press conference, General Manager Huawei ridiculed the design of our original mobile phone bracket for Xiaomi SU7." At the same time, Lei Jun also asked questions and initiated a vote: Do you support the original mobile phone bracket in the car? Why do you think we made the original mobile phone stand?
Up to now, 271,000 people have voted for this activity, of which 231,000 support the original mobile phone stand of Xiaomi SU7 and 40,000 do not. Zinc Finance noticed that the highest praise message in the comment area of the event was: "I can do without it, but you can’t do without it."
In addition to the episode of mobile phone stand, Yu Chengdong also made a targeted "insinuation" on intelligent driving.
It is reported that Lei Jun once said: "The whole industry is in the city of NOA. We started user testing in April, officially opened ten cities in May, and opened nationwide in August!" At the press conference, Yu Chengdong said: "Huawei Smart Drive is a spot, not a futures, and it is the best spot!" In this regard, Lei Jun did not send a response.
At the press conference, we conducted parameter benchmarking and technical comparison, or emphasized the strength of functions, and then the senior management published a document on Weibo to "communicate with each other" from a distance. This marketing technique and rhythm has become commonplace in the mobile phone circle, especially Huawei and Xiaomi, who have used this routine perfectly.
However, this has become a "new thing" in the automobile circle. After all, no car company has conducted such a "blatant" benchmarking before, and there has been no precedent for executives to speak out about competitors’ weaknesses at the press conference.
Obviously, with the competitiveness of Huawei and Xiaomi in the automobile market becoming more and more prominent, the two companies that have been "loving each other and killing each other" for many years have reached the time of "short-term intersection", but this time the battlefield has changed from mobile phones to cars.
In fact, the relationship between Huawei and Xiaomi in the early days was not "tense" at all, and even very "harmonious".
In 2012, Yu Chengdong sent Weibo that he needed to learn Internet marketing from Lei Jun, and Lei Jun also responded that Huawei has always been an example for Xiaomi to learn. At that time, the relationship between the two families was very harmonious.
In 2013, Xiaomi gradually gained momentum and launched Redmi, and Huawei also announced its glory independence.
In terms of brand positioning, Redmi, like Glory, focuses on products with a thousand yuan level. Including the product level, Glory 3C, the first mobile phone after glory independence, is very similar in appearance and configuration to Redmi. Later, sales proved that the two companies’ choices were undoubtedly correct. In 2014, the shipments of Glory and Redmi rose sharply, which brought more revenue to the parent company.
Even if they all made achievements, they all became the best in the market. At that time, the atmosphere between Xiaomi and Huawei was still very relaxed.
When the time came to 2015, Huawei began to make full efforts in the mid-to-high-end market, and achieved outstanding results, and the Mate series emerged. However, in the same year, Xiaomi, due to the insufficient supply of Xiaolong processors, led to a crisis in brand reputation and sales began to decline.
On the other side of Xiaomi’s constant problems, Glory seized this opportunity, eating away a lot of market share originally belonging to Xiaomi and Redmi, and helped Huawei win the first sales volume that year.
There is no doubt that 2015 is a watershed in the relationship between the two companies, laying the groundwork for the future "mutual tearing" between the two companies.
Only a few years later, Huawei Xiaomi began real competition, and the executives of the two companies frequently exchanged ideas at their respective product launches.
For example, in May 2018, HONOR officially announced that it will release Glory play on June 6, which will launch Huawei’s "very scary technology." Xiaomi immediately said that "Xiaomi 8 has many very scary technologies". In this regard, Huawei directly responded that it has a lot of technology. "Do you want to learn? It’s very difficult, so you should study hard. "
By the end of 2019, Xiaomi and Glory started a war of words for a week, starting with Xiaomi’s public relations Pan Da’s announcement that Weibo publicly questioned the existence of false propaganda on the glory smart screen.
In the next few years, such incidents were frequently staged. Even in the last year or two, the "DISS Friends" session at the two press conferences was never absent.
However, from a historical perspective, the reason for the "frequent tearing" between the two companies is also inseparable from the changes in the market environment.
In the years when the two companies were "in love", Samsung and Apple occupied most of the market share. At that time, domestic mobile phones needed to unite and reduce internal friction because of insufficient technical strength. But by 18 years or so, Samsung Apple has begun to decline, while the domestic mobile phone under the rapid development is rising step by step.
Without the threat of foreign enemies, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have also started a new round of competition, and the story of Huawei and Xiaomi "killing each other" has begun.
In fact, in the fact that the entire mobile phone market is gradually sluggish, the "gunpowder smell" of the two companies in the past two years is far less strong than before. But who would have thought that as both companies entered the new energy vehicle market, those familiar "old plots" turned back.
In 2021, after Huawei officially started its automobile business, it always claimed that it would not build cars, but only help car companies build good cars.
So far, Huawei has really not violated this creed, but with the increasing "Chinese content" of the entire automobile circle, consumers have been unable to tell who is the "protagonist".
Up to now, Huawei has reached cooperation with many domestic car companies, such as "Wen Jie" with Selis, Aouita with Chang ‘an, Zhijie with Chery, Polar Fox with BAIC and so on.
Although there are many cooperations, Huawei’s cooperative brands are only "out of bounds", and others are not excellent. As the first smart car that it cooperates with Chery, Huawei’s expectation for the intelligent S7 is obviously higher than other brands. Not only is it equipped with Huawei’s best autonomous driving technology, but it has also gained an unprecedented "momentum" from Huawei.
Unfortunately, judging from the current results, the performance of the intellectual community is very unsatisfactory.
Zhijie S7 has been on the market for nearly five months, and its sales in these five months have failed to exceed 1,000 vehicles. Specifically, there were 115 and 784 vehicles in November and December last year, and 604 and 794 vehicles in January and February this year, respectively.
In the same price segment, on the other hand, Xiaomi SU7 stole the limelight after listing, and the heat continued to rise, and the sales volume was even more popular.
According to public data, Xiaomi Automobile delivered a total of 1,093 vehicles in the 14th week of 2024, ranking 9th among new energy automobile brands. In addition, in the brand sales ranking of the pure electric vehicle market of more than 200,000, Xiaomi Auto also successfully entered the list, ranking fifth with sales of 1.1 thousand vehicles, surpassing Zhijie and Xpeng Motors.
It is worth noting that the delivery of Xiaomi Auto started on April 3rd, and the 4th to 6th falls on Tomb-Sweeping Day holiday, so this data can not fully reflect the actual delivery potential of Xiaomi SU7.
The sales volume of Zhijie S7 can’t exceed 1,000 in five months, and the sales volume of Xiaomi SU7 will exceed 1,000 in the listing week.
Under such a "gap", Huawei can’t turn a blind eye. It must readjust its propaganda caliber and regard Xiaomi as its core competitor. This is also the reason why Huawei wants to "second" release the intelligent S7.
Huawei should re-emphasize the technical gap between Zhijie S7 and Xiaomi SU7, so as to gain more consumers’ recognition and increase sales.
After 2018, the "mutual tearing" between the two companies can be seen as a microcosm of the marketing war of mobile phone brands. Now, this process will be repeated in the automobile market.
So, who will be the ultimate "winner"? This question is not important. It is important to hope that Huawei and Xiaomi can benefit consumers with better technology under this kind of competition, so that the whole new energy automobile industry can reach a higher level.
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