The automotive world has been abuzz lately, primarily due to the evolving partnership dynamics between Huawei and AITO.

On September 15, the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance and AITO jointly announced the introduction of a new exclusive franchise model. This news quickly sparked rumors in the market, with some claiming, "Huawei is abandoning AITO," and others asserting, "The two sides are completely decoupling," leading to widespread concern and uncertainty among car owners, dealers, and investors.

The resolution to this controversy emerged with the disclosure of content from Huawei's latest internal executive meeting.

On September 18, Xu Qinsong, President of Huawei Terminal China, addressed all employees involved in the Smart Selection vehicle program in an internal speech, directly refuting market rumors of "decoupling" and affirming that AITO remains firmly within the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance system.

Xu Qinsong, Head of Huawei China Terminal Business. Image Source: Weibo

Notably, Huawei's Heart of Huawei community recently released a comprehensive 10,000-word summary of a discussion between Guo Ping, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, and new employees. This summary sheds light on Huawei's top-level strategic vision for its automotive business, AI large models, and future operations. Combining insights from these two high-level internal speeches, it becomes clear that the AITO model adjustment is not a strategic retreat but a strategic move towards standardization, specialization, and a focus on core technologies within Huawei's broader business framework.

Guo Ping, Chairman of Huawei's Supervisory Board. Image Source: Weibo

01 Debunking Rumors: It's an Upgrade, Not a Breakup

The crux of the controversy lies in the change of the authorized entity for store operations.

According to the latest adjustment plan, the authorization for some Huawei mall stores will transition from Huawei to Seres, which will independently manage store operations, sales, and services. On the surface, this might seem like Huawei is withdrawing and the partnership is dissolving.

However, the actual implementation logic is quite different. Huawei is adopting a new dual-track channel approach to prevent a complete separation:

Firstly, it aims to comprehensively promote the AITO exclusive franchise system, establishing an independent sales network to enable the brand to operate autonomously and develop independently.

Secondly, it will retain core cooperation links by keeping some Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance shared showrooms to continue selling AITO models as usual.

The intention behind this layout is clear: channel responsibilities can be divided, but system bindings must remain intact. AITO continues to be a core member of the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance, with a deep system-level connection between the two sides. Insiders close to Huawei have also confirmed that this adjustment represents a cooperation upgrade, not a breakdown.

02 Reconstructing Responsibilities: Seres Takes the Lead, Huawei Focuses on Tech

The essence of this model adjustment is a precise optimization of the division of labor between the two sides, with each party focusing on its strengths.

In the early stages of AITO's development, Huawei was deeply involved in product development, marketing, channels, and after-sales, quickly establishing AITO as a popular high-end new energy brand. Now that the brand is mature, a more specialized model is deemed necessary for long-term development.

Kang Bo, Vice President of Seres Group, officially responded to market controversies, explaining the new cooperation rules:

In the future, Seres will lead the entire process of product definition, design and development, brand marketing, channel retail, and after-sales services, taking charge of brand market operations. Huawei, on the other hand, will return to its role of technological empowerment, continuing to support AITO with core technologies such as the Harmony cockpit, advanced intelligent driving, and vehicle intelligence.

Image Source: Weibo

In simpler terms, Seres will handle car manufacturing, sales, and user services, while Huawei will provide technology, ecosystem, and computing power support, leading to a clearer division of labor and more stable cooperation.

03 Huawei's Automotive Business Strategy Unveiled in the 10,000-Word Summary

Many people only see the superficial channel changes of AITO but fail to grasp the ultimate positioning of Huawei's automotive business as revealed in the 10,000-word summary by Huawei's top executives, which is also the underlying logic of this model reform.

Regarding the intelligent automotive business, Guo Ping clearly stated in the discussion that Huawei remains committed to its "no car manufacturing" strategy. The intelligent automotive components business is an extension of Huawei's ICT business and will provide intelligent driving services directly to external parties through Yinwang Intelligent in the future.

Image Source: Weibo

According to public information, Huawei established Yinwang Intelligent in 2024, integrating core assets and personnel from the Automotive BU and introducing automotive shareholders such as Seres, Avatar, and JAC. Guo Ping made it clear that Huawei will continue to lead the development of Yinwang and will not weaken its automotive business布局 (layout).

Image Source: Qichacha Image Source: Weibo

At the same time, Huawei's automotive components business has always been positioned for a global layout, not limited to the domestic market. Whether automotive companies go overseas is decided by the brands themselves, with Huawei only responsible for providing core intelligent technology support.

This perfectly explains the AITO reform: Huawei is divesting itself from the front-end operations of vehicle manufacturing to concentrate all its efforts on the output of core technologies such as intelligent driving, HarmonyOS, and vehicle intelligence, allowing automotive companies to focus on manufacturing and market operations. This is Huawei's established long-term strategy.

04 AI Identified as the Greatest Opportunity: Terminals and Intelligent Driving Must Develop Their Own Large Models

In the 10,000-word summary, Huawei publicly revealed its complete AI and large model strategy for the first time, directly pointing out the underlying logic of increasing investment in intelligent vehicles and deepening vehicle-end AI.

Guo Ping bluntly stated: Artificial intelligence is currently Huawei's greatest development opportunity. The core competitors in the global AI arena are concentrated in China and the United States, and Huawei has the ability to represent China's top level and provide world-class AI solutions.

Among all of Huawei's businesses, smartphones and intelligent driving are the core "data flywheel" scenarios, capable of refining global top-tier intelligent agents through continuous data iteration, and are also Huawei's key breakthrough sectors in the future.

Regarding the large model layout, Huawei adopts a differentiated hierarchical strategy with extremely clear thinking:

1. ICT and computing business: The goal is to compete with NVIDIA, not persisting in developing general-purpose large models independently, but focusing on building a computing power foundation, allowing all global large models to run efficiently on Ascend, Kunpeng, and supernode platforms.

2. Huawei Cloud business: Must develop its own large models to maintain the core competitiveness of the cloud business.

3. Terminal and intelligent driving business: Must insist on developing their own large models. Mainstream open-source large models only release weights, making fine-tuning and incremental training difficult and data lagging. Only self-developed models can adapt to the ultimate experience and safety requirements of vehicle-end and terminal devices.

Guo Ping also frankly admitted that Huawei's large models started early but have not yet dominated the industry. However, the overall industry is still in the exploration phase, with new forces continuously breaking through, and the advantages of giants are not unshakable. Huawei will continue to deepen and make breakthroughs.

05 Top-Level Business Strategy: Focusing on Connectivity and Computing, Refusing Blind Expansion

The adjustment of the AITO model also aligns with Huawei's latest overall business strategy.

Guo Ping clearly stated in the summary Huawei's future core principles: Extreme focus, without blind business expansion. In the future, Huawei will deeply cultivate the two core areas of connectivity and computing for a long time, with all business layouts revolving around these two main lines, without cross-border layouts in unrelated sectors such as satellites and space.

Regarding external pressures, Huawei's top executives are very clear: What truly restricts development is never the external environment but internal core competitiveness. Huawei does not pursue benchmarking or surpassing a specific company, does not deliberately chase sales volume and rankings, but only focuses on refining product value and deepening its own technological capabilities.

At the same time, Huawei frankly stated that it will continue to learn from Apple in supply chain management, optimizing inventory turnover and enhancing supply chain resilience to safeguard the long-term stable development of terminal and automotive businesses. In the 6G field, Huawei will continue to promote global unified standards and consolidate its leading position in the communications field.

06 Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance's Overall Layout Finalized: Integrating the Full Matrix, Bidding Farewell to Wild Growth

Returning to the automotive sector, this adjustment of AITO is not just a change for a single brand but a strategic integration action for the full matrix of the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance.

Xu Qinsong clearly stated in the internal meeting that the team needs to continuously consolidate the brand awareness of the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance and steadily promote the development of the "Four Realms" series brands. At the same time, Huawei will further consolidate the dominant position of the four cooperation OEMs and uniformly incorporate them into the standardized system of the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance.

Problems such as resource dispersion, positioning overlap, and internal competition caused by the parallel operation of multiple brands in the past will be completely resolved. AITO takes the lead in piloting the exclusive franchise model, paving the way for brands such as Luxeed, Enjoyment Realm, Prestige Realm, and Shang Realm, achieving differentiated positioning of each brand, unified resource allocation, and unified system standards.

Although AITO appears to operate independently, it is actually a key step for the entire Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance matrix to move towards standardization, scalability, and professionalization.

In Conclusion

Combining Huawei's two high-level internal speeches, we can completely put an end to market rumors: This channel reform involves no decoupling, no abandonment, and no exit.

From a superficial perspective, it is an optimization of AITO's channel responsibilities and rights; from a deeper perspective, it is a microcosm of Huawei's overall strategic implementation: Divesting heavy asset operations, focusing on core technologies, deepening AI and intelligent driving, and extremely focusing on the main business.

In the future, Huawei's automotive business will form a clear pattern: Yinwang carries the technological foundation, automotive companies are responsible for market operations, and the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance provides unified ecological empowerment.

Huawei, freed from the cumbersome operations in the foreground, will focus more on building technological moats in intelligent driving, HarmonyOS, and AI large models; while AITO, having completed its independent upgrade, will also usher in a more flexible and high-speed growth cycle. The new growth curve of the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance has officially begun.

Interactive Topic: Do you think that with independent franchising and continuous technological empowerment from Huawei, can AITO's subsequent sales volume return to its peak? Welcome to discuss in the comment section.