If you have been paying attention to the Chinese smartphone industry since around 2010, you must be familiar with the name Yu Chengdong. Since taking charge of Huawei's terminal business in 2011, Yu Chengdong has been tied to various hot searches.

At the end of April, Huawei internally released a personnel adjustment document, in which Yu Chengdong's position was adjusted from CEO of Terminal BG to Chairman of Terminal BG, and his original position was taken over by his old subordinate He Gang.

Apparently rising but secretly falling? I'm overthinking it

Objectively speaking, Huawei's terminal business under Richard Yu has always been newsworthy and hotly discussed. But from the perspective of the entire Huawei company, it is still a low-key company. Regarding Richard Yu's job adjustment, Huawei officials have made almost no extra statements.

However, due to Yu Chengdong's high profile, many people still have a mentality of watching the fun, believing that Yu Chengdong's job adjustment is "promotion in name only and demotion in reality", and various conspiracy theories have emerged.

But to be honest, this idea is a bit too dramatic. After the adjustment of Yu Chengdong's position, he is still one of Huawei's executive directors. Huawei now has only 8 executive directors. Excluding Xu Zhijun, Hu Houkun and Meng Wanzhou, the three rotating chairmen, Yu Chengdong is considered to be a core decision-maker with great power and high status.

In addition, Yu Chengdong's job adjustment this time also added a position of Director of the IRB for Smart Terminals and Smart Auto Parts. Huawei's IRB, the full name of which is the Investment Review Committee, is mainly responsible for deciding the investment approval of specific business projects, which is also a powerful position.

In fact, there is no possibility that Yu Chengdong will be promoted in name only but demoted in reality. Huawei has three major business groups: wireless (carrier), terminal and enterprise. Yu Chengdong alone has brought the two major businesses of wireless and terminal to life, and is known as the "Saint Wireless" and "God Terminal".

When Richard Yu took charge of the mobile phone business in 2010, sales were only 3 million units. By 2019, Huawei's smartphone sales had reached 240 million units, surpassing Samsung to become the world's number one. With the release of the Mate 60 series of mobile phones in 2023, Huawei returned to the high-end mobile phone market, and sales in the first quarter of 2024 have returned to the top of the domestic market. According to Richard Yu's forecast, Huawei's automotive business is expected to turn losses into profits in the second quarter.

In other words, Huawei's terminals and cars are all on the right track. What some people say online about "taking the blame for the Wenjie M7 car accident" is just a boring fantasy, nothing more.

Will they build cars?

Yu Chengdong now holds four main positions, the most among Huawei's eight executive directors: executive director, chairman of the Terminal BG, chairman of the Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, and director of the IRB for Intelligent Terminals and Intelligent Automotive Components.

In other words, Yu Chengdong still has a direct relationship with the terminal and automotive business. In fact, Yu Chengdong's position as "Chairman of the Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU" was not added after this adjustment, but was adjusted as early as September 22, 2023, but Yu Chengdong has been active in the front line of the automotive business since then.

The greater possibility of this job adjustment is that Yu Chengdong needs to focus more on the strategic planning of terminal business, and leave things like press conferences and talking nonsense on Weibo to his younger and older subordinate He Gang. It should be said that this is a relatively normal job adjustment.

Judging from the current situation, Huawei's smartphone business has gradually returned to the right track, and its smart car business is about to make a profit. It no longer needs Yu Chengdong to be the front-line warrior, but needs a helmsman. In fact, He Gang, who succeeded Yu Chengdong as CEO of the Terminal BG, has not even joined the Huawei board of directors, which is enough to prove the division of labor between the two.

Whether to build cars or not may be the most tangled strategic choice for Huawei in recent years. Electric cars are the future development direction and the strategic high ground in the next few years. The value they can create far exceeds that of smartphones in those days.

At the same time, under the leadership of Richard Yu, Huawei's automotive business has mastered various core components such as Hongmeng smart cockpit, ADS3.0 intelligent driving assistance system, Drive ONE power platform, and Tuling smart chassis. It can be said that except for power batteries, Huawei has mastered all core components related to electric vehicles.

With such prospects and technological advantages, ordinary companies would have already started making cars. However, making cars also has huge risks and is extremely costly. In addition, Huawei is under pressure from US sanctions, which is different from ordinary companies. Therefore, Huawei's current principle is not to make cars, but to help users make good cars. This is an asset-light, low-risk approach.

But everything will change. Huawei once wrote "not making terminals" into the "Huawei Basic Law", but Huawei terminals under Yu Chengdong contributed more than 60% of Huawei's operating income at its peak. Currently, Huawei mainly enters the mobile phone market through the smart car selection model, Hi model and component supplier model, but the boundaries between these three models are not so clear, and Huawei is unlikely to stick to the development mode of three models in parallel for a long time.

If the time is right, it is possible for Huawei to enter the field of vehicle manufacturing, and Yu Chengdong may return to the front line. If Huawei-branded cars really appear, the competition in the domestic new energy vehicle market will undoubtedly become more intense, and consumers will have more high-quality choices.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.