Huawei Electric Car Partner Sees Revenue Surge

Huawei Technologies car-making partner Seres has said it expects losses to narrow up to 45 percent for 2023 over the previous year amidst a sales surge in the final quarter of the year.

The move into electric vehicles was Huawei’s first major bet after being placed on the US’ Entity List in 2019, and it began working with Seres in December 2021 on Aito-branded vehicles.

The companies began Aito sales in March 2022 and launched a revamped Aito M7 SUV in September followed by the M9 in December.

The M7 has taken 130,000 orders in four months, Seres said, boosting full-year revenues by up to 7 percent to 36.5 billion yuan ($5bn, £4bn) for 2023.

EV bet for Huawei

Strong consumer demand for the M7 in September led to delivery delays the following month, prompting Aito to offer buyers compensation for each day of delayed shipment up to 10,000 yuan.

Seres said it expects 2023 losses to fall to between 2.1bn yuan and 2.7bn yuan, down from 3.8bn yuan in 2022.

It said ongoing losses were due to investment in research and development, poor sales for the first three quarters and marketing costs.

The company said it expects “profitability to be further enhanced” going forward from M7 and M9 sales.

Sales surge

It delivered 94,380 cars last year, up 24 percent from 2022, and announced last February a goal of producing and selling 1 million electric vehicles by 2026.

China is the world’s biggest car market and domestic electric car makers are increasingly seen as a major competitive threat to market icon Tesla.

China’s BYD became the world’s biggest EV maker by volume last year, taking the crown from Tesla, which held it since 2015, when Tesla’s vehicles overtook the Nissan Leaf.