They are also mobile phones, the same and different from the Geely and Weilai

Author | Chu Yilong

Source | Insight New Research Society

"Geely's acquisition of Meizu" and "Weilai Li Bin acknowledged that he would launch a mobile phone." Recently, the news about the cross -border mobile phone of these two car companies has been very loud. In the era of smart electric vehicles, "mobile phone vehicle integration" is becoming more and more important. How to perfectly integrate mobile phones with smart electric vehicles and build a new ecosystem is a new challenge facing many related car companies.

As a traditional car company, Geely, as an Internet car company, has become the "road visitor" of car companies cross -border mobile phones. Although they are also motors, Geely and Weilai represent two types of car companies and two forces, respectively. The same and different in the process of cross -border engineering will be the focus of the industry's attention.

01 Common Movement Dream, different situations

As the chairman of China's largest private car company, Li Shufu once looked at the new forces such as Weilai, saying that they did not have the capital to build a car and do not understand the car.

However, when the transit was moved, when Geely also joined the smart electric car track, the style of painting changed. Li Shufu first praised the ideal car in the Shanghai car exhibition in 2019, and then began to contact Li Bin. Geely wanted to invest in Weilai, but it was not successful, but Li Shufu and Li Bin became "friends".

In August 2021, Geely's Lands Technology Company announced its establishment. The company plans to build a high-end pure electric smart car. Li Bin participated in the PRE-A round of financing of Luters Technology and attended the establishment ceremony. While Li Shufu's relationship is getting closer and closer, their views on the future ecosystem of the smart electric vehicle also tend to be consistent, that is, to build a mobile phone to achieve better mobile phone connection. Geely announced in the mobile phone industry in September 2021. In March 2022, Li Bin said that Weilai's mobile phone project was in the investigation stage. Since then, Geely and Weilai cross -border plane kicked off.

Geely's Land Lord does a pure electric supercar, and Li Bin also has a super running dream

In fact, whether it is Geely or Weilai, from the vertical point of view, the construction is more like a defensive layout. In recent years, cross -border car manufacturers of mobile phone manufacturers have threatened the living space of car companies.

In 2014, Apple announced the cross -border car building. Although it did not take out the finished car for eight years, it launched the CarPlay car system during this period to stun the industry. CarPlay is currently the most leading car interconnection system. The new CarPlay launched this year has supported 15 car brands including Mercedes -Benz, Audi, Porsche, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo, Nissan, Ford, and Honda.

Although Huawei did not build a car directly, it launched the HUAWEI Inside full -stack smart car solution. At present, Changan Automobile, BAIC and GAC have cooperated with it.

Xiaomi announced a car building in March 2021 and plans to invest $ 10 billion in 10 years, which can be described as "murderous."

The use of software technology advantages of mobile phone manufacturers can easily create ecological closed loops with mobile phones as the core. Consumers will see more about quality and appearance when buying a car in the future, but whether it has an ecological closed loop like Apple. Essence By then, large mobile manufacturers will pose a great threat to domestic traditional car companies and Internet car companies, so Geely and Weilai will have a common dream.

From the horizontal point of view, although the two have a common dream, Weilai, as a new force for car manufacturing, is more enthusiastic about the new ecosystem, and even challenges large mobile phone manufacturers like Apple.

The picture shows Li Bin talk to netizens to explain the cause of the mechanism

Li Bin's explanation of the motorcycle is: "Apple is now closed about the automotive industry. For example, the logo of the second -generation platform of Weilai is equipped with UWB, and Apple does not open the interface, making us very passive. Starting from user interests and experience We also have to study mobile phones and smart terminal devices centered on cars. "

In fact, not only that, Weilai also has another mystery. From January to May this year, the delivery volume of Weilai electric vehicles is 37,866. After Xiaopeng, Nezha, ideal, and zero running, as a new circle of vehicles, The leading boss in it, Weilai was very embarrassing. In the face of the market value of more than 200 billion, Weilai must tell shareholders' good stories to make the passive situation of current sales and continuous losses.

And when the reporter asked why Li Shufu was a cross -border, Li Shufu said: "For the mobile phone business for the entire Geely automotive industry, the significance is very profound. Mobile phone is a fast iterative mobile terminal. The carrier can allow users to share innovative results as soon as possible, but also transfer some of the safe and reliable results to the application of the car, and realize the close interaction of car and mobile phone software technology. "

For Geely, it is more like a passive move to deal with new forces such as Weilai and Xiaopeng. As the boss of Chinese private cars, Geely has not cut the new forces of the car. Later, the purpose was to keep its share in the entire automotive market and leading position. In the case of a new forces and mobile phone factories, Geely has to be in trouble anyway.

02 The cash reserves are abundant, but Weilai is afraid of insufficient stamina

Although both Geely and Weilai have set up Flags, the tolerance of the two will differentiate in the face of huge spending. Although the cash reserves of the two are sufficient, Geely, a strong veteran car company, has a generous shot, and Wei Lai, who has lost money for many years, is afraid of incompleteness.

Both Geely and Weilai are in order to strengthen the future ecosystem of smart electric vehicles. The audience is small and will not spend too much on marketing. Weilai may also have to make the owner's mobile phone. Other mobile phone manufacturers spend huge sums of money to laid channels. However, both want to build high -end machines. High -end machines are amazing in research and development costs, especially Weilai also wants to develop its own operating system. Dong Mingzhu developed Gree's mobile phone and spent 20 billion yuan, not a particularly high -end mobile phone; Xiaomi high -end MIX4 R & D costs were as high as 500 million. From this point of view, the ability to burn money will verify whether Geely and Weilai can go to the end. Geely is not afraid of burning money. This car company established in 1997 has currently reached 510 billion yuan. Not only does it produce cars, the business also covers many industries in the upstream and downstream of the car, and even rockets.

In the list of Fortune 500 in "Fortune" in 2021, Geely Holding Group ranked 239th with a revenue of US $ 47.19 billion, an increase of 4 more than last year. Geely, which has been on the top 500 in the world for ten consecutive years, is the only private car group on the list.

Geely has been listed on the top 500 years in a row for ten years

When Geely established the "Movement Company" Hubei Star Times last September, it announced that it was planned to invest 10 billion. Recently, Geely acquired a 79.09%stake in Meizu mobile phones that once compared Xiaomi, and Geely used actions to prove that he was not afraid of burning money.

In contrast, even if its cash reserves were 52.6 billion, the 27.9 billion liabilities plus the losses of the year made Weilai's financial situation unobtrusive. From 2019 to 2021, Weilai lost 27.5 billion in three years. Although the losses narrowed to 4 billion in 2021, in the first quarter of 2022, Weilai net losses burst again and won the first quarter with a net loss of 1.78 billion. The title of "Lost King" in the car circle is close to half of the losses in a quarter alone. Even if it decreased by 16.8%from the fourth quarter of last year, the loss is still large, and it is difficult to change the short -term.

Weilai 2019-2021 Financial Statement

Under such operating dilemma, Weilai wants to build high -end mobile phones and needs to burn billions of or more money to engage in research and development, which is too stressful. If Weilai is determined to burn money on the mobile phone, it will inevitably have a great impact on the main business of the crisis. This is why Weilai has no great sound of auspicious sound on the machine. Real status quo.

Although the same is the same as the niche, the number of auspicious households is huge, and the number of Weilai users is limited.

Motor companies create mobile phones, marketing is difficult to avoid. It is also the construction of a vehicle -machine interconnection ecosystem, which is also a high -end machine that meets the requirements of the ecosystem, but it also means that Geely and Weilai's mobile phones are unlikely to enter the mainstream mobile market. In terms of marketing, Geely and Weilai are mainly facing their owners, but the effect may be very different. Geely has a huge user base, and Weilai user base is small. In the face of a huge cost of motorcycles, the success or failure of sales may determine whether the movement of the two can go far.

Geely, as an old car company, has a huge number of users. These auspicious car owners, both car users and smart electric vehicle users are potential users of Geely mobile phones. The number of Weilai's users is different from that of Geely, and the future marketing path will not be easy.

In 2021, domestic car sales rankings, Geely ranked first

According to relevant information, after 25 years of development, Geely has reached 12 million vehicles as of May this year. Regarding the development of smart electric vehicles, Geely has begun in 2018. After 4 years of development, Geely's smart electric vehicles have sold more than 420,000, even much higher than Weilai, who is a smart electric vehicle. From January to May this year, Geely Pure electric vehicles sold about 66,200 units, an increase of 603%year -on -year. The original intention of Geely's mobile phone is to match smart electric vehicles to better interconnect with the vehicle. smartphone.

The number of users of Weilai is much worse than Geely. As of the end of May this year, Weilai has sold less than 210,000 electric vehicles, and the number of users is far less than the number of vehicles delivered, because many users have two or three vehicles. Weilai. These people who buy cars are Weilai's hardcore fans, and the portraits are all over the crowd. Let them spend money to buy Weilai high -end machines, but there are too few people.

However, Li Bin once said that Weilai did not want to achieve commercial success. It mainly wanted to give users a good car interconnection experience, and could even give customer mobile phones.

If Weilai really chooses the form of gift machines, then its mobile phone business only has expenditure and no income. The huge high -end mobile phone research and development costs will not only be in the beginning stage, and the future replacement will also need a lot of funds. It is difficult to say whether the owner's business will be affected. If Weilai also chooses to sell their mobile phones, then the poor number of users will not bring much benefits to Weilai. For huge R & D expenses, it will be a spectacle of water.

04 Faced with technical difficulties, Geely acquired Meizu to copy the road, and Weilai will start from scratch.

虽然吉利和蔚来的出发点都很好，在万物互联的时代，将手机与车机一体化，能更好的提高用户体验，但是跨界玩手机最著名的一个失败例子就在眼前，那就是Gree.

At that time, Dong Mingzhu's original intention to make a mobile phone was also to give users an intelligent experience. It was called smart home for Gree. Dong Mingzhu said in the live broadcast that Gree mobile phones spent more than 20 billion developed smartphones. Such a huge cost, eventually failed, indicating that it is not easy to make a machine. Even if you have money, you may face many technical difficulties. Netizens generally have several aspects of Gree mobile phone: Gree's mobile phone performance is half low, and the price is doubled; in addition to the larger and larger screen size, it is comparable to the remote control. For example, Gree still stays at 16 million pixels.

From the spitting of Gree's mobile phone, we can see that in the era of the Red Sea today, there is no new technical highlight that it is difficult to recognize consumers. This is why Geely has just acquired Meizu. As a mobile phone brand that can be comparable to Xiaomi, Meizu's research and development and manufacturing technology of smartphones is very popular. Geely chose to copy the approach with strong capital, and Weilai, who is insufficient financial resources, may start from scratch to form his own own, his own own, his own own, his own own, and his own own. Mobile team, independent research and development.

Regarding the independent research and development of high -end intelligent machines, in the dialogue with netizens, Li Bin said that the users of the Weilai car owner will use Weilai mobile phones in the Weilai owner. The implication is that Weilai also wants to develop his own operating system. The difficulty of developing operating systems is very difficult. The most typical example is Hongmeng. Even companies like Huawei have been developed for 9 years, and invested a lot of financial resources and manpower. Weilai wants to develop its own operating system. It is now difficult to see.

It is not difficult to build a mobile phone, but it is difficult to build a high -end machine, especially if Weilai also wants to develop an operating system, it is even more difficult. The technologies of mobile phone chips, baseband chips, 5G radio frequency technology, operating system, and functional design are urgent to overcome Geely and Weilai. In the end, Geely can be better than the end of the road. Wait and see.

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