Seris’ High Margins Unveiled: Huawei Partnership Drives One-Third of Revenue as R&D Pushes for Independence

Seres has become the fastest new-energy vehicle (NEV) startup to reach one million cumulative deliveries. In the first half of 2025, Seres purchased components and services worth RMB 20 billion from Huawei—accounting for one-third of its total revenue—and paid approximately RMB 136,000 per vehicle to Huawei. Despite these high procurement costs, Seres maintained an industry-leading gross margin of 26.5%. The partnership with Huawei does not involve profit sharing; payments primarily cover components and services. Additionally, Seres leverages Huawei’s network of 700 experience centers for marketing. To reduce its reliance on Huawei, Seres began repurchasing AITO-related trademarks and design patents in 2024 and significantly ramped up R&D investment—R&D expenses surged to RMB 5.586 billion in 2024. The company is also venturing into the “new energy vehicles + AI” domain, collaborating with ByteDance to develop embodied intelligent robots. Seres plans to allocate 70% of funds raised from its Hong Kong IPO to R&D and 20% to overseas expansion and diversified sales channels.