Huawei and its electric-vehicle partner Seres are reportedly reshaping the way they run the Aito brand, with Seres set to take charge of product, marketing, sales and service while Huawei moves to a lighter-asset support role, according to Chinese business outlet Huxiu, citing a report from financial news service CLS.
The two companies have not yet issued an official announcement, so the change remains a media report rather than a confirmed development. But the report, published on September 15, said the new division of responsibilities could be agreed within the week.
Seres has already paid 2.5 billion yuan (about $352 million) to buy the Aito trademark from Huawei, and has spent 11.5 billion yuan (about $1.62 billion) to acquire a 10% stake in Huawei's Yinwang smart-driving unit. That means the two sides remain closely tied, even if the balance of responsibility is shifting.
The Aito brand was launched in 2021 as the first test of Huawei's "smart selection" model, under which the tech giant defined the product, ran marketing and put Aito cars in Huawei stores. Consumers often called Aito the "Huawei car," even though Huawei has always insisted it does not build vehicles itself.
Since then, Huawei has expanded its smart-selection lineup to five brands - Aito, Zhijie, Xiangjie, Zunjie and Shangjie - and the report said Huawei wants to focus resources on accelerating the other four. With limited floor space in stores and limited engineering and marketing capacity, Aito can no longer expect to be the sole focus of Huawei's attention.
Seres takes the wheel
For Seres, taking control is a double-edged sword. The company's first-half results show the cost of running a car business. Revenue fell 7.87% year on year to 57.49 billion yuan (about $8.1 billion), and the company swung to a net loss of 1.72 billion yuan (about $242 million) from a profit of 2.94 billion yuan a year earlier. R&D spending rose 34.8% to 7.01 billion yuan (about $987 million).
Seres cited model refreshes, rising raw-material prices and asset-value adjustments as factors behind the losses. Factories, production lines, parts, inventory and after-sales support all require real money, and the early deep cooperation with Huawei helped Seres get past the hardest cold-start phase of building a new brand. But it also left consumers associating the cars with Huawei rather than with Seres.
Now that Seres owns the Aito trademark and a stake in Yinwang, and is set to lead product, marketing, sales and service, it gains full operational control of the brand. That means Seres will decide what to build, how to price it, when to refresh models and how to spend marketing budgets - and it will also bear the consequences of those decisions.
Whose brand is it anyway?
The biggest challenge may be brand ownership in the minds of consumers. Many people first encountered Aito in Huawei stores, were drawn by the HarmonyOS cockpit and Huawei's assisted-driving technology, and made their purchase decisions on the strength of Huawei's reputation.
With all five smart-selection brands now using Huawei technology and potentially sharing the HarmonyOS channel, consumers can choose between them. If buyers are loyal to Huawei rather than to Aito, the brand faces internal competition for attention and traffic.
Seres will need to convince buyers that Aito stands for more than Huawei's technology - that its vehicle quality, range-extender powertrain, design and service are reasons to choose it. The trademark may now belong to Seres, but the brand will belong to whoever earns consumer trust, the Huxiu analysis said.
The shift does not amount to a breakup or a "de-Huawei-ification" of Aito, the article argued. The two companies remain connected through technology, brand history and the Yinwang stake. The first phase proved Huawei could push Aito into the market; the second phase will test whether Seres can keep it there on its own.
