Chinese tech giant Huawei, which has long said it won't build cars directly, appears ready to start selling them.
The company's smart home brand Huawei Zhixuan has reached an agreement with Chongqing-based automaker and auto parts supplier Sokon to start selling vehicles from the latter's new energy car brand Seres in Huawei's channels, according to yicai.com.
On March 9, Huawei and Sokon held a memorandum of the cooperation signing ceremony in Shenzhen, where the two sides discussed cooperation in the field of new energy vehicles.
The two did not disclose details of the cooperation at the time, although yicai.com cited sources close to Sokon executives as saying that the two sides had agreed on Seres sales in some of Huawei's 20,000 outlets nationwide.
A source in Sokon's research and development department previously said Huawei may be trying to use this cooperation in order to establish its own standards in the automotive industry.
"The only way to integrate the whole ecology into the car companies is to get involved in R&D yourself. When the product is successfully launched, only then will it have a greater voice in setting standards," he said.
Huawei has also recently hinted at the possibility of selling cars.
Xu Zhijun, Huawei's rotating chairman, said last week that "recently Richard Yu (CEO of Huawei's consumer business) is actively working with car manufacturers to see how to help them sell cars."
Huawei insiders said the previous silence was mainly because the cooperation between the two sides is still ongoing, and Huawei does not want the content of the cooperation to affect the capital market when it has not yet been released, according to yicai.com.
(Seres SF5)
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