(Yicai) July 16 -- Huawei Technologies sold Aito’s trademarks and patents to its carmaking partner Seres Group to comply with Chinese regulations, according to the chairman of the tech giant’s auto business unit.

“We transferred the Aito brand to Seres at a very low price because national regulations require that the brand owner and manufacturer be the same entity,” Richard Yu said during a livestream sales event yesterday, adding that Huawei invested heavily in Aito, which is now worth at least CNY10 billion (USD1.4 billion).

Seres will buy 919 registered or pending text and graphics trademarks and 44 exterior design patents related to Aito for CNY2.5 billion (USD344 million), with the full payment expected to be completed by the end of the year, the Chongqing-based firm announced on July 2.

Shenzhen-based Huawei transferred all of its intelligence cars’s four new energy vehicle brands to partners, including the English brand Aito, Yu pointed out. “Four-letter brands starting by ‘AI’ are very hard to trademark globally now,” he said.

During yesterday’s event, Yu, who also chairs Huawei’s consumer business unit, reflected on the challenges his team has faced in the past five years.

“Our team couldn't start new projects.” he said. “We once held the number one spot in the global smartphone market, but our market share vanished in just two quarters. Our annual shipments dropped to less than what we used to ship in a single month, barely more than 20 million units.”

Huawei would sell just over 20 million phones in a bad month, and over 30 million in a good month, he said.

“It was very difficult, and the morale of the team was very low, but challenges can make teams stronger,” Yu pointed out. “These have been very tough times for us, but I’ve always encouraged the team not to lose heart.”

Editors: Liao Shumin, Futura Costaglione