Seres is taking over the Aito brand's product definition, design, marketing, retail and service from Huawei, a restructuring that will split the dealer network and has some Huawei partners worried about their bottom line, according to Chinese tech outlet Huxiu.
The change, announced on September 15 by Harmony Intelligent Mobility and Aito, keeps Aito within the Harmony ecosystem but shifts leadership to Seres, with Huawei's terminal business playing a supporting role. The other four Harmony brands - Zhijie, Xiangjie, Zunjie and Shangjie - will continue under Huawei's full-process management model.
Dealers told IT Times, a publication cited by Huxiu, that stores currently selling all five Harmony brands will be divided: some will move into the Seres system and sell only Aito, while others stay with Huawei and handle the remaining four. One core Huawei dealer said the split would not be finalised until the end of September, and that his store would remain under Huawei's management.
Dealers fear lost traffic and revenue
The dealer expressed concern about rent, noting that stores with more parking spaces cost more, and that the other brands would not immediately fill the gap left by Aito. In the previous arrangement, many experience stores were funded by dealers - covering investment and rent - while Huawei staff handled car sales. After the switch, some Aito sales staff are expected to be replaced by Seres personnel, the dealer said.
Delivery centres will see a simpler transition, since they were already staffed largely by dealers' own employees, the dealer added. But he still expects overall revenue to drop this year, because Aito has long been the main volume driver for Harmony Intelligent Mobility, and its sales counted toward dealer targets.
Data supports that concern. In August 2026, Harmony Intelligent Mobility delivered 42,101 vehicles, while Aito retail sales came to about 22,600 units - roughly half of the Harmony total, according to third-party retail figures cited by Huxiu. For the full year 2025, Aito delivered 422,900 vehicles, or 71.8 percent of Harmony's 589,100 total.
Why Aito left first
The split reflects how the partnership has changed since 2021, when Aito was effectively the only showcase for Huawei's smart-car model and received concentrated resources. With Harmony now spanning five brands, Huawei must redistribute resources, while Seres is recalculating the cost of the cooperation, Huxiu reported.
According to China Business Network calculations cited by Huxiu, Seres paid Huawei a technology licensing fee of 2 percent of vehicle selling price, plus channel and marketing service fees of 8 percent - roughly 10 percent of the car price in total - along with hardware procurement costs. Seres' procurement payments to Huawei rose from 5.802 billion yuan in 2022 to 56.054 billion yuan in 2025, the report said. Seres swung to a net loss of 1.717 billion yuan in the first half of 2026 from a profit of 2.941 billion yuan a year earlier.
A person close to Huawei told Huxiu that neither side abandoned the other, but both felt the original model needed recalculation. "If Huawei only charges Seres 10 percent, it is actually losing money," the person said, noting that sales promotion is only part of the cost and R&D involvement is hard to quantify.
Some Aito customers have reacted by cancelling orders, the dealer said, citing concerns about Seres' quality control once Huawei steps back. Seres' stock fell 5.09 percent on September 15 before rebounding 3.51 percent on September 17, reflecting market uncertainty about the deal's impact.
Huawei is meanwhile pursuing other paths to stay embedded in cars without owning brands or sales channels. Avatr, which keeps its brand and channel with the automaker while deepening Huawei cooperation, sold over 120,000 vehicles in 2025, showing the model can work, though some models have faced pressure in 2026, Huxiu noted.
