On September 19, Li Xiang posted on Weibo about the recent attention paid to talent joining mobile phone brands, but said that the company has no plans to make mobile phones for the time being.

This response confirmed the joining of Song Ziwei, the former star product manager of iQOO, but Li Xiang did not reveal what specific matters she was responsible for. However, Song Ziwei's Weibo certification has been changed to "digital blogger", and the original promotional content of the iQOO 11S mobile phone has also been removed.

Previously, the topic of Song Ziwei's resignation became a hot topic, even surpassing the popularity of Apple. Who is Song Ziwei? Why did her departure attract so much attention?

Just two days after Song Ziwei, known as "Song's Big Thigh", joined Ideal, NIO launched their first mobile phone, Nio Phone, in a not-so-low-key manner, claiming that it was "born for NIO owners."

Coupled with the previous close ties between Geely Auto and Meizu mobile phones, the story of the car manufacturer's mobile phone does not seem that simple. The ideal mobile phone may be about to break the ground, and Song Ziwei is the person standing on the stage to reveal the answer. With her innate traffic, who could be more suitable than her?

Who is Song Ziwei?

Judging from her public work history, Song Ziwei did not work at vivo for long. In 2019, she moved from Shanghai Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. to vivo as iQOO product manager. It was almost three years before she left in September this year.

However, she is well-known in the mobile phone industry. She appeared at the iQOO Neo launch conference in her first year at work, and quickly won praise from netizens for her beautiful appearance and professional hosting style.

Since then, she has become the spokesperson and image representative of iQOO and participated in the launch of many mobile phones. She is not only responsible for product design and planning, but also for user communication and feedback.

At the iQOO 3 launch conference in 2020, Song Ziwei's words "I am responsible for shaking, and it is responsible for stability" not only shocked the friends who watched the conference at that time, but also made her quickly popular and her popularity soared. Since then, she has always been present at iQOO's launch conferences.

Her position is not representative, but her popularity has made her resignation a focus of attention.

In fact, in early September, Song Ziwei seemed to hint on Weibo that she was thinking about joining Ideal. On September 8, she posted on Weibo, "I can't go home tonight, but fortunately I still have an L9. It's a different experience to feel the heavy rain and listen to music in the car." The picture was a picture of the interior of Ideal L9.

iQOO officials did not give much explanation for her departure, but Li Xiang’s Weibo also showed that the flow of talent from the mobile phone industry to the automotive field seems to be a trend.

He pointed out, "Since some talents from mobile phone brands have joined us, many investors and users asked Ideal whether it would make mobile phones. The answer is that there is no plan. In the past eight years, talents from mobile phone brands have accounted for at least 15% of the R&D, operation, and intelligence teams, so this is not a recent phenomenon. Top talents in the mobile phone industry are an important support for our capabilities."

This response illustrates two points. First, Ideal has no plans to make mobile phones. Second, Song Ziwei's joining the company is a normal phenomenon and there is nothing to be surprised about.

Automakers prefer Huawei talents

In fact, at almost the same time when Song Ziwei left iQOO, Guan Haitao, CMO of Honor China and director of the e-commerce department, was also reported to have resigned. On September 19, Yang Xueliang, senior vice president of Geely Holding Group, confirmed that Guan Haitao joined Zeekr and will report to Lin Jinwen, vice president of Zeekr Intelligence.

Like Song Ziwei, both of them have Huawei backgrounds. In 2018, he served as the deputy director of the marketing department of the Honor Business Department and the CMO of China. In January 2021, Guan Haitao became the director of the e-commerce department of Honor Terminal Co., Ltd. in China, in charge of Honor's e-commerce business. He had been in Honor for 5 years until his resignation.

Huawei has provided more talents to Ideal than just that. In August 2022, Xie Yan, former vice president of software engineering and director of the OS department of Huawei's Consumer Business Group, joined Ideal Auto as head of the system R&D department, with a rank of M11; in February of this year, Li Wenzhi, former director of Huawei's Global HRBP Management Department, took over as head of the CFO's office of Ideal Auto, responsible for process, organizational, and financial transformation, and reporting to Ideal CFO Li Tie; in April, former Honor executive Zou Liangjun also joined Ideal Auto as senior vice president of sales and service, responsible for the sales service group, managing sales, delivery, service, and charging networks, and reporting directly to CEO Li Xiang.

In terms of working time, Xie Yan has been at Huawei for nearly 3 years, Zou Liangjun has been at Huawei for nearly 5 years, and Li Wenzhi has been at Huawei for 18 years. It is understood that Li Wenzhi was mainly responsible for sales in domestic and overseas markets for the first 16 years, and was responsible for the group's human resources in the last two years.

With the continuous addition of talents, at the end of December 2022, Ideal ushered in the largest personnel change since its establishment in 2015. At that time, Ma Donghui, chief engineer of Ideal Auto, replaced Shen Yanan as executive director and president, responsible for the R&D and supply groups; Xie Yan served as Chief Technology Officer and senior management team member of Ideal Auto, responsible for the system and computing groups; Chief Financial Officer Li Tie was mainly responsible for the organization and finance group, that is, the group to which Li Wenzhi belonged.

At that time, Li Xiang revealed that the core of the adjustment was to promote the company to build a comprehensive matrix organizational upgrade. Next, Ideal Auto will move towards an annual revenue target of 100 billion yuan and challenge the revenue scale of 1 trillion yuan.

From this point of view, continuously absorbing Huawei's talents to join is also to move towards this goal. From the perspective of the development of the mobile phone industry and the automotive field, this is a beneficial choice for both parties.

IDC data shows that the top five smartphone manufacturers in China in terms of market share in the second quarter of 2023 are OPPO, vivo, Honor, Apple, Xiaomi and Huawei (IDC believes the latter two are tied). The overall pattern has not changed much, it is basically "Huami OV + Apple", and this pattern has basically been settled.

In this situation, Huawei is regaining 5G with the Mate 60, while major Android brands such as Honor, OPPO, and Xiaomi are competing for the high-end market with their dual flagship product layout of "bar phone + folding screen". However, the price of high-end flagship phones has a threshold, and even touches the bottom line of many users. The higher the price, the higher the consumer's expectations for the hardware performance of the phone. High-performance phones will be more durable and reduce the frequency of replacement. In this cycle, consumers either have no desire to consume or do not change their phones for a long time after purchasing. It is difficult to reverse the sluggish mobile phone market in a short time by high-end routes.

In sharp contrast, the new energy field is extremely lively, which may be the reason why many mobile phone talents choose to move to the automotive industry, because there are more possibilities.

The second half of new energy is car computers

In fact, car companies may not introduce mobile phone talents to make mobile phones, but more accurately, to make "car computers". Although cars and mobile phones are closely related, making mobile phones is not an easy task. Mobile phone chips are a technology that requires a threshold, and not all companies have this ability. Currently, only Huawei's self-developed chips are at the leading level in China.

Although the R&D investment in making mobile phones is much less than that in making cars, it is still not to be underestimated. In 2020, Yu Chengdong revealed that the Huawei Mate40 series cost $560 million to build, and the R&D cost does not include the HiSilicon Kirin 9000 chip. For car companies that have to invest tens of billions of dollars at any time, every extra penny will put pressure on their main business.

Most importantly, car companies make mobile phones for their own service, not for the public domain, which makes it difficult to form a good sales cycle. Therefore, they may absorb mobile phone talents more for car computers, rather than simply for making mobile phones for themselves.

Intelligence can be said to be a standard feature of new energy vehicles, and the importance of the in-car intelligent interconnection system is self-evident. According to data from TouBao Research Institute, from 2015 to 2019, the market size of China's intelligent car machine industry increased from 14.55 billion yuan to 23.02 billion yuan, and is expected to reach 44.87 billion yuan by 2024.

Judging from the current competition in car-machine systems, both NIO and Xpeng have self-developed systems, and Ideal also launched its completely self-developed in-car voice system OTA 4.5 version in June this year. In addition, technology companies such as Apple and Huawei are also trying to enter the market by providing software and cooperating with traditional car companies that lack software design capabilities.

In the second half of the competition of new energy, intelligence is the main focus of competition, and the car computer system will inevitably be promoted to an important position. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why Ideal has reserved various talents in the field of car computers. After all, electrification does not mean intelligence, and how to improve software capabilities is a problem that all car companies need to think about.

At the previous China Electric Vehicle Hundred People Conference, some industry insiders optimistically predicted that by 2026, the penetration rate of high-level intelligent driving will exceed 15%, completing the intelligent crossover. From electrification to intelligence, intelligent driving will trigger a new round of reshuffle in the automotive industry, which is the consensus of the industry. The next three years will be a critical window period, and intelligent driving technology is the key to success.

Since the beginning of this year, Ideal has also been continuously upgrading its car system. Following the launch of its self-developed in-car voice system, Ideal has been pushing OTA 4.6 version of the car system to Ideal L series users since September 16. This version upgrade adds 25 new functions, optimizes 10 experiences, and includes many features that car owners are looking forward to.

Electrification is the first step, and intelligence is the second step. Whoever can seize the initiative in the second step, Ideal has already begun to prepare.

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.