- Chinese smartphone makers, such as Huawei and Xiaomi, have started investing in the automotive sector. Their expertise in high-technologies and experience manufacturing consumer products could potentially give them a competitive advantage in the automotive sector. However, it is important to note that the automotive industry is very complex and competitive, with many established players and strict regulations to follow. Traditional carmakers have a long history, technical expertise and well-established manufacturing infrastructure, giving them a significant competitive advantage. Also the trend is for smartphone producers to create a strong partnership with an existing automobile carmaker rather than creating a new vehicle on their own. The smartphone company Huawei thus made a partnership in 2021 with the carmaker Seres. Together they developed the range of AITO models (see below). In February 2023, Huawei and Seres further strengthened their alliance by signing a new contract to develop a new flagship BEV vehicle. The objective is to produce one million vehicles by 2026.
- For its part, the smartphone company Xiaomi, after exploring the route of building a vehicle on its own (SU7 – see photo below), sought to establish an association with an automobile carmaker. Production of the Xiaomi SU7 will initially be carried out at BAIC.
- For the moment, we can only observe the evolution of sales of AITO, the only brand linked to a Chinese smartphone carmaker (Huawei) currently in activity, before the arrival of Xiaomi. Produced by the Seres group (formerly Sokon), AITOs increased from 78,000 sales in China in 2022 to 104,000 in 2023 and potentially more than 300,000 in 2024 (59,000 sales over 2 months 2024). But at the same time, sales of Seres brand models fell from 109,000 in 2022 to 68,000 in 2023 and potentially less than 100,000 in 2024 (15,000 sales over 2 months 2024). It thus seems that the AITO brand has replaced the Seres brand and that it is starting to take market share to the competition from 2024. The sales potential in 2024 for the AITO and Seres brands reaches 400,000 sales, or 2.3 times the cumulative volume of 2023 and 2.1 times the cumulative volume of 2022. In 2021, the AITO brand did not yet exist and neither did the Seres brand.
Here is a video about the AITO car display in a Chinese store selling smartphones: https://www.inovev.com/index.php/en/video-shanghai-20231111 
