Shanghai (ZXZC)- Huawei, a Chinese smartphone maker, talked about its early cooperation with Audi at its Bantian base, Shenzhen on June 5. As is exposed by Xiongwei, president of Huawei LTE product line, Huawei's IoV products will be mounted on 100,000 connected vehicles this year.

During 2017, Huawei gained revenue of RMB 237.2 billion with a growth of 31.9% from a year earlier. However, Huawei's revenue growth slowed down since 2017, especially the crucial operator business. What's more, since global smartphone business has entered into a new development stage, smartphone business can hardly support Huawei's continuous revenue growth.

To Huawei's senior executives, automobile business would be a good choice that may help Huawei to realize sustainable revenue growth in the next few years.

Xu Zhijun, vice president of Huawei, once said that the auto industry would be probably subverted by artificial intelligence (AI) in the future. Autonomous vehicle is likely to subvert RMB 16 trillion worth of auto industry including relevant industries thoroughly in China.

About one month ago, strategic department of Huawei stated that Internet of Vehicle (IoV) will be the top priority of the company, adding that IoV is such a high-value industry that Huawei should accelerate its deployment as soon as possible. Besides, Huawei showed its ambition in IoV sector and targeted to be the global leader in IoV worldwide.

As early as in December, 2016, the IoV innovation center of Huawei Central Research Institute reportedly recruited employees from vehicle-related universities in such advanced areas as intelligent driving, research and designing of power battery system, battery charging solutions. It was also reported that Huawei had conducted recruitment in universities for at least three years.

Apart from the business of IoV, Huawei also has Watt Lab, a team focusing on battery and new energy research. The staff members of Huawei's whole teams totaled as much as several thousand.

Huawei also has a team in researching and testing of autonomous driving in Canada, as well as a testing ground in Shanghai, according to the sources from Huawei. It is rumored that the abovementioned teams that are relevant to automobiles are likely to be integrated into one.

It is in 2015 that Huawei got the orders of communications from Audi and Mercedes-Benz. At the end of September, 2016, Audi, BMW, Daimler teamed up with five telecommunication companies to create the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), aiming to promote the application of 5G telecommunication technologies. Huawei was included in the five companies.

At the end of 2017, Huawei announced the long-term cooperation with PSA Group in IoV field. Based on Huawei's IoT platform dubbed Ocean Connect, they will construct a new platform, CVMP (Connected Vehicle Modular Platform) to offer customers new mobility service solutions.

In 2013, Huawei announced officially that it will enter into IoV sector. In 2014, Huawei teamed up with Dongfeng Motor to develop IoV. Later, the smartphone company formed partnership with GAC Group, SAIC Group, Changan Automobile and FAW Group. However, a senior executive of Huawei denied Huawei had entered into auto industry in 2015.

In 2016, a rumor said that Huawei is likely to conduct strategic cooperation with Magna, one of the world's largest auto parts and vehicle contracted manufacturers, to launch the Huawei-branded vehicles. However, Huawei denied that it had no plan to enter into car manufacturing industry and also had no plan to launch Huawei-branded vehicles.

In April, 2018, Huawei would reportedly join forces with an auto startup to enter into auto industry. Huawei denied the rumor once again.

In October this year, senior executives of Huawei like Ren Zhengfei, Xu Zhijun, Guo Ping will get together in Ireland to discuss Huawei's long-term strategy, and automobile will be the most significant topic for the meeting. It is rumored that Xu Wenwei, who is in charge of strategic marketing, is investigating and surveying in auto industry and the auto-related topic, in order to prepare for the meeting in October.