问界品牌将专属专营 仍在鸿蒙智行合作框架下

AITO’s recent announcement on adjustments to its Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA) cooperation model delivers clear, user-centric messaging directly relevant to car owners.

1. The adjustment will officially take effect on September 15, 2026. AITO will not withdraw from the HIMA system; instead, it will remain a core member of the alliance while exploring a new exclusive franchised operation model under the existing cooperation framework.

2. Under the new model, Seres will lead end-to-end operations covering product definition, design, brand marketing, retail channels, and service systems, while Huawei Terminal will provide capability empowerment. The two parties will maintain their in-depth collaborative partnership.

The adjustment will have no negative impact on daily vehicle usage rights and benefits for existing users and car owners, with clear protection rules in place:

1. All existing benefits already available to AITO users will remain unchanged following the model adjustment, and future vehicle-related services will not be disrupted.

2. Going forward, the two partners will focus on building more premium, high-end smart electric vehicles and optimizing full-lifecycle vehicle experiences, so users will continue to receive corresponding product and service upgrades.

AITO’s newly announced exclusive franchised cooperation model provides a practical reference for co-created cross-industry brands on operational responsibility allocation and long-term brand building.

1. As a representative outcome of cross-sector integration and industrial upgrading, AITO was jointly designed and built by Huawei and Seres with support from industrial partners. While retaining its membership in the HIMA ecosystem, the brand has explicitly adopted an exclusive franchised development path to anchor its positioning in the premium smart EV segment.

2. The division of operational responsibilities is clearly defined: Seres will lead the full value chain covering product definition, design, brand marketing, retail channels, and service systems, while Huawei Terminal will participate as an empowerment partner. This structure preserves the foundation of ecosystem collaboration while clarifying the core responsible entity for brand operations.

The adjustment also sends clear signals about the guiding principles for premium smart EV brand building:

1. User rights and benefits are prioritized throughout the brand adjustment process. Continuous optimization of the full-lifecycle vehicle experience is positioned as a core brand value, with strong emphasis on protecting user trust.

2. The exclusive franchised model will help sharpen users’ clear perception of the brand, enable concentrated resource investment in refining premium products and services, and strengthen AITO’s high-end market positioning.

AITO’s model adjustment toward exclusive franchising delivers clear regulatory signals to relevant business entities involved in AITO sales and services, with transparent and controllable impacts.

1. Following the adjustment, Seres will lead AITO’s retail channel operations, with Huawei Terminal providing capability empowerment. Rights and responsibilities for AITO sales and service coordination across channels will be further clarified. As the brand moves toward exclusive franchising, channel focus on the AITO brand will increase.

2. All existing user benefits and ongoing services for AITO customers will remain unaffected by the adjustment. Sellers will not bear additional costs for benefit fulfillment caused by the model change, and there will be no gap in user service responsibilities passed down to sales fronts.

The adjustment also highlights operational considerations and opportunity directions for relevant sellers:

1. AITO will remain within the HIMA cooperation framework, with Seres and Huawei continuing to co-develop premium smart EVs and optimize full-lifecycle services. The brand’s product and service support will remain stable, allowing sellers to make long-term plans for related sales and service businesses.

2. In daily operations, sellers should proactively communicate official information about unaffected user benefits to in-store and inquiring customers to address purchase concerns, and leverage the brand focus advantage of the exclusive model to improve service quality and conversion efficiency.

AITO’s cooperation model adjustment clarifies future product design and manufacturing directions for production partners involved in the brand, while signaling clear business collaboration opportunities.

1. Following the adjustment, Seres will lead AITO’s product definition and design processes, with Huawei Terminal providing capability empowerment. As manufacturing entities, factories can, under Seres’ leadership, connect with Huawei Terminal’s technology enablement to align with the premium smart EV product positioning and implement more competitive product design and production requirements.

2. As the brand continues to deliver high-quality full-lifecycle vehicle experiences to users, factory-side operations need to build full-chain quality control capabilities covering production, delivery, and subsequent service handover, to meet the product quality standards of a premium brand.

This model exploration also offers actionable insights for automaker factories engaged in cross-industry cooperation:

1. In cross-sector collaborations with technology companies, manufacturing entities can gradually take on leading responsibilities across the full value chain from product design to channels and services, smoothing the response link between production ends and user ends to bring manufacturing closer to user demand.

2. Factories can leverage partners’ capability empowerment to optimize handover processes between production and services, support the delivery of the brand’s full-lifecycle user services, and capture market development opportunities in the premium smart EV segment.

The new exclusive franchised model being explored by AITO reflects emerging cooperation trends in the smart EV industry, while pointing to clear client demand directions for various service providers.

1. When co-created cross-industry smart EV brands reach a certain development stage, they typically optimize cooperation efficiency by clarifying leadership over full-chain operations. During this process, brands have explicit needs for brand marketing implementation, retail channel system adaptation, and service system structuring — all viable entry points for service providers.

2. During the model adjustment period, brands’ core priorities are to protect user rights from impact and ensure smooth service transition. At this stage, brands face practical pain points in user expectation management and service handover process optimization, requiring targeted service solution support.

Clear upgrading trends are also emerging for brands’ long-term development service demands:

1. Positioned as a premium smart EV brand, AITO will continue optimizing full-lifecycle vehicle experiences. The brand will have long-term service procurement needs in areas such as user services and experience upgrades, and service providers can design corresponding service offerings around the full-scenario vehicle usage needs of premium car owners.

2. Under the cooperation model where Huawei Terminal provides empowerment to the brand, service providers are needed to bridge the gap between technology capability implementation and actual brand operation needs, helping both parties improve cooperation and coordination efficiency.

AITO’s adjustment toward exclusive franchising under the HIMA framework sets clear requirements for operational management and risk control at ecosystem cooperation platforms, while pointing to directions for platforms to optimize cooperation rules.

1. As the platform hosting brand cooperation, HIMA needs to adapt to AITO’s exclusive franchising development needs under the existing cooperation framework: support Seres in leading AITO’s full-chain operations across products, marketing, channels, and services, while properly coordinating Huawei Terminal’s participation in empowerment, to ensure smooth advancement of bilateral cooperation.

2. During the model adjustment period, the platform needs to synchronize official information announcements, clarify rules that all existing user benefits and subsequent services will remain unaffected, prevent user trust risks caused by information asymmetry, and safeguard platform reputation.

The platform’s subsequent operation and merchant recruitment rules can also be optimized and adjusted around this new cooperation model:

1. The platform can develop supporting operational rules for brands pursuing the exclusive franchising route, helping them strengthen exclusive brand perception, match their premium smart EV positioning, and improve user conversion and service efficiency.

2. In future cooperative brand management, the platform can clearly define the operational rights and responsibilities of different brands, establish smooth coordination mechanisms, and ensure that all brands within the ecosystem can deliver high-quality full-lifecycle services to users.

The exclusive franchised cooperation model introduced by AITO represents a new development in the cross-sector integration of China’s smart EV industry, carrying high industrial research value.

1. As a representative outcome of cross-sector integration and industrial upgrading jointly built by Huawei and Seres, AITO’s new model explored under the HIMA framework clarifies the rights and responsibilities of both partners across product, brand, channel, and service links, forming a new cooperative relationship defined by "automaker-led full-chain operations, technology enterprise participation in empowerment, and retained ecosystem membership."

2. The adjustment consistently prioritizes user rights protection and full-lifecycle vehicle experience optimization, fully reflecting the user-centric development logic of the smart EV industry.

This model provides a real-world case for observing new issues in industrial development and summarizing evolutionary patterns:

1. In cross-industry cooperation between technology enterprises and automakers, how to divide operational rights and responsibilities, maintain independent brand perception while achieving synergy, and ensure user service continuity are common challenges facing the industry. AITO’s exploration provides a trackable practical sample for addressing these issues.

2. Tracking and researching the operational effects of such new models can provide practical reference for optimizing cross-sector cooperation mechanisms and exploring industrial upgrading paths in the smart EV sector.