Huawei’s automotive business unit swung to a net profit of RMB 2.23 billion ($313 million) in the first six months of this year,???????? ??????? while revenue more than doubled to over RMB 10.4 billion, boosted by surging demand for partner Seres’ electric vehicles. The unit had losses of RMB 7.6 billion and RMB 5.6 billion in the last two years. The numbers were revealed in a regulatory filing on Sunday by Seres, which also announced it would invest RMB 11.5 billion for a 10% share in Shenzhen Yinwang Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. The wholly-owned subsidiary of Huawei, also called Newcool, is set to absorb its car business unit.
The news comes just days after Huawei, on August 20, struck a similar deal with Chinese state-owned automaker Changan Automobile, marking the spin-off of the tech giant’s Intelligent Automotive Solution (IAS) business unit for a diversified ownership structure. Seres delivered 222,679 units of Aito-branded EVs, featuring Huawei’s assisted driving technology and HarmonyOS operating system, from January to July, compared with just 31,781 units delivered over the same period last year. This helped boost the gross margin of Newcool to 55.36%, up from 32.13% last year. Seres accounted for more than 60% of Newcool’s revenue in the first six months of this year, according to the filing. [TechNode reporting, Seres filing, in Chinese]