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On the morning of January 22, Huawei formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Dongfeng Lantu Guan Xuan. Lantu Automobile said that according to their respective advantages, the two sides will jointly create the ultimate intelligent travel experience around the needs of users, and accelerate the large-scale commercialization of intelligent technology through innovative exploration of cooperative models in many fields. As for the mode of cooperation between the two sides and the specific models, as of press time, the official has not released the details.

Lantu Automobile is a high-end intelligent electric brand of Dongfeng Automobile Group. It was founded in 2018 and officially released its brand logo and Chinese name on July 17, 2020. At present, Lantu Automobile has three models: Lantu FREE, Lantu Dreamer and Lantu Yuguang. According to production and marketing KuaiBao data released by Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., the cumulative sales of Lantu cars in 2023 was 50285, an increase of 159.08% over the same period last year. Although Lantu Automobile has increased significantly compared with the same period last year, it is still a far cry from the new car-building forces in the mainstream of the car market, and this growth is tantamount to a drop in the bucket for the decline in sales of the entire Dongfeng Group.

In view of this cooperation, the industry believes that the signing of the strategic cooperation agreement means that the cooperation between Lantu Automobile and Huawei has entered a new stage. It is worth mentioning that this is the second car company Huawei has announced in nearly a week. Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, said at the 2024 Changan Automobile Global Partnership Conference that the new joint venture between Changan and Huawei was tentatively named "Newcool" and that the two sides were pushing forward the details of the transaction, including the establishment of the new company. It is understood that the new joint venture will cover seven major areas, including smart driving, intelligent cockpit, smart car digital platform, smart car cloud, AR-HUD and smart car lights. Zhu Huarong stressed that in the agreement between Huawei and Changan Automobile, Huawei promised not to engage in the whole vehicle business and not to engage in the business within the new company.

According to people in the industry, according to Lantu Automobile's statement of "accelerating the large-scale commercialization of intelligent technology through innovative exploration in many fields through cooperative models", Huawei's cooperation with Lantu Automobile or the cooperation model between Changan Automobile and Huawei is expected to be similar, and the HI model is expected to be adopted, but as of press time, Lantu Automobile and Huawei have not clearly stated what kind of cooperation mode the two sides will adopt.

Up to now, there are three cooperation modes between Huawei and automobile companies, which are Tier1 (traditional parts supplier model, supplying intelligent parts for automobile enterprises), HI mode (Huawei Inside mode) and smart selection model. The main difference of these three cooperation modes lies in the depth of cooperation. Among them, the smart selection model is led by Huawei's consumer BG team, and Yu Chengdong is personally responsible. It is also Huawei's closest cooperation with automakers and is considered by the outside world to be the most "flamboyant" model, which has now been renamed Hongmeng Zhixing. Besides Sellis, Hongmeng Zhihang also works with Chery, BAIC and Jianghuai. Among them, Selis and Huawei have launched three models: M5, M7 and M9, while Huawei and Chery have partnered with Zhijie, and the first model is S7.

As for the HI model, Huawei and auto companies jointly define and jointly develop smart cars. In the early days, BAIC, Changan and Guangzhou Auto all adopted the HI model to establish a partnership with Huawei. At present, some models of Jihu Motor and Avita all adopt this model. However, from the feedback from the end of the market, these brands do not have particularly eye-catching achievements on the sales side. Retail figures show that polar fox sold 30016 cars in 2023, while Avita sold 23485.

Although Huawei has repeatedly stressed that it does not build cars, Huawei's position among car companies has long changed as it continues to lay out the auto circle. As early as last year, Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei and BU CEO of smart car solutions, said to the outside world that as the automobile industry "gets more and more popular", the future reshuffle and market competition will be very fierce. It is predicted that BYD will become one of the few giants that will survive in the future, and it is hard to say whether other car companies will survive. And further explained: "manufacturers who can work closely with Huawei can survive and become a small number of survivors." Whether the follow-up cooperation between Lantu Automobile and Huawei can enhance the market competitiveness of Lantu Automobile, we might as well wait and see.

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