Seres takes the wheel at Aito as Huawei retreats to a supporting role

Huawei's Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA) announced on Tuesday that its founding marque Aito is switching to a new cooperation format within the alliance, one in which partner Seres is in charge and Huawei plays a supporting part. The arrangement took effect at once and hands Seres responsibility for product definition and design, brand marketing, retail channels and after-sales operations — a far bigger remit than the manufacturing role it used to hold.

Aito stays inside the alliance, but the brand is expected to run a sales network of its own. According to National Business Daily and Lanjinger, several existing HIMA outlets will be handed over to Seres and converted into Aito-only showrooms, a detail absent from the official statement. The alliance's four other marques — Luxeed, Stelato, Maextro and Shangjie — will keep the Huawei-led playbook unchanged, and HIMA stressed that customer benefits and services remain intact.

The two companies began working together in 2021, with Huawei owning product planning, vehicle design and distribution while Seres built the cars. Their first joint model, the M5, reached customers in March 2022, and the brand's one-millionth vehicle was assembled this past January. Seres has meanwhile been consolidating control: it paid 2.5 billion yuan for Aito trademarks and patents in 2024 and later spent 11.5 billion yuan on a 10% stake in Huawei's Yinwang unit.

The handover lands at a tough moment. Seres swung to a 1.72 billion yuan net loss in the first half of 2026 from a 2.94 billion yuan profit a year earlier, as revenue slipped 7.87% to 57.49 billion yuan, while HIMA's August deliveries of 42,101 vehicles marked a third straight year-on-year monthly decline.