Alibaba is making an impact in the Chinese auto industry, as it goes through upgrades and electronic transition.
SIAC Motors is the top player in the Chinese market. The company recently launched the vehicle arm known as Zhiji. In it, the Shanghai government and Alibaba are the major players. This move has come at a time when Nio and Xpeng and their predecessor Tesla, have seen their stocks soaring.
The ties of Alibaba with SIAC can be traced back to 2015. They announced a $160 million investment in Internet-connected cars. After that, the partners made a joint venture known as Banma. Since that time, Alibaba has developed many auto solutions for the Banma platform to enable different things, like voice-activated navigation and voice ordering coffee.
However, Alibaba isn’t the exclusive supplier of SIAC, as it has also worked with Audi and BMW through the years. Moreover, for the new EV brand of SIAC, Alibaba will be the service provider, a spokesperson from Alibaba stated.
The other tech giant with big moves in the auto industry is Huawei. This week, the telecom smartphone maker stated that it will fold its smart car into its consumer business group.
The main focus of Huawei in the auto industry isn’t only to develop ICT to assist the automakers in making cars. The group will continue to expand. Richard Yu is leading the group that helped Huawei grow from an underdog in the mobile industry to one of the leading global players.
The phone business of Huawei has taken a huge hit after the U.S. sanctions affected its supply chain. The company also sold its budget phone brand Honor recently. For Huawei’s sake, let’s hope that this ban is lifted soon. The Chinese tech giant should keep on selling amazing brand phones, like Y5 and Y6, throughout the world.
