Huawei Partner SERES Builds Third Factory

According to Chinese media reports on September 9, Huawei Smart Selection partner SERES has kicked off construction of its third factory. The new facility is named “SE Project of Liangjiang New Area,” spanning about 700,000 square meters in the southwestern city of Chongqing. In the future, this site will achieve an estimated annual production capacity of 700,000 vehicles, with a total investment of nearly 10 billion yuan ($1.44 billion).

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Currently, SERES has two factories for producing AITO cars, both of which are in Chongqing. The first is the SERES Liangjiang Factory, located in Liangjiang New Area, with a total area of about 500,000 square meters. It is built according to Industry 4.0 standards and has more than 1,000 intelligent robots. It was put into production in 2019, with an annual output of about 150,000 vehicles. The AITO M5 model is produced at this site.

The second one is the SERES Fenghuang Factory. This facility is located in the Qingfeng Hi-Tech Industrial Park, with a building area of about 330,000 square meters. It has a planned annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles and a total investment of 4 billion yuan. It mainly produces AITO M7s, and the factory has just recently been put into use.

The third site is being built according to smart, digital, and flexible automobile factory standards. It includes four major process workshops, namely, stamping, welding, painting and final assembly. The factory also has an auto parts workshop, commercial vehicle storage center and related supporting facilities. It produces medium and high-end intelligent vehicles, which are expected to achieve an annual output value of more than 30 billion yuan and to help generate value in the industrial chain of 45 billion yuan after being put into production.

According to public data, as of August 2022, the SERES automobile offline channel network has covered 171 cities, and more than 700 user centers and experience stores have been opened. It is estimated that by the end of 2022, the number of experience stores and user centers will expand to more than 1,200.

The firm’s latest financial report shows that, in the first half of the year, SERES operating income was 12.416 billion yuan, up 68.14% year-on-year, with a net loss of 1.717 billion yuan. In addition, in the first half of the year, the cumulative sales volume of SERES vehicles was 21,600, up 884.98% year-on-year.

In August this year, SERES sold a total of 10,045 cars, and for the first time since the establishment of the AITO brand, the monthly sales volume exceeded 10,000. At the same time, the company achieved this only six months after the delivery of its first model, the AITO M5.