Trump sparks fire with Anker power bank,It is available on Amazon

• Trump sparks fire with Anker power bank
• On August 13, Musk held a live conversation with Trump.
• During the live broadcast, a power bank used by Trump unexpectedly became the focus. This power bank is produced by Anker, a Chinese overseas brand. It has an LCD display on the right side to display the battery level. It is available on JD.com and Amazon.

News of Trump’s use of Anker power bank spread to China, and Anker Innovation’s stock price rose rapidly at around 11:30 noon on August 13.

In the Internet age, an accidental event may bring a wave of wealth or even reverse the fate of a company. Dong Yuhui’s success in Dongfeng Selection is an example.

Trump made Anker’s power bank popular, and Anker Innovation’s team acted quickly, and indeed captured a wave of “riches”. However, despite the excitement, Anker Innovation still had to face its difficulties and troubles.

Anker Innovation received a wave of wealth

The power bank used by Trump is an Anker MagGo series product.

This model of power bank is available on JD.com for 399 yuan, and on Amazon for $89.99, with a contract price of 646 yuan.

Trump is the former president of the United States and the Republican presidential candidate. The news that he used Anker power bank quickly attracted widespread attention in the country, doubling investors’ confidence in Anker innovation, and pushed up the stock price with lightning-fast actions. Its stock price, and more importantly, has made more ordinary domestic consumers aware of the “Anker Innovation” brand at once.

This is undoubtedly good news for Anker Innovation, which has been making slow progress in the domestic market for a long time.

“Blue Ocean Yiguan” learned that Anker Innovation is a typical brand that “exports first and sells domestically later”. It was born, grew, and strengthened in overseas markets, and obtained most of its revenue from overseas markets. However, the domestic market seemed to be done “by the way,” and its performance has always been tepid.

In recent years, Anker Innovation has paid enough attention to the domestic market, launching brand flagship stores on JD.com, Tmall and other brands, and even opened a physical store in Zhengzhou, Henan. At the same time, it also invited domestic celebrities Wang Hedi and Zhang Zhehan to endorse the brand.

However, even though Anker Innovation has worked hard, its performance in the domestic market is still dismal.

In 2023, the revenue contributed by the mainland Chinese market to Anker Innovation will only account for 3.64% (approximately 669 million), which is negligible in the face of its total annual revenue of 17.5 billion yuan.

At present, although Anker Innovation is still growing in overseas markets, the pace has slowed down. The vast development opportunities in the domestic market are expected to provide Anker with a second growth curve. However, the brands Anker Innovation has accumulated overseas have not fed back its domestic development as expected. This disappointed many investors who bought Anker Innovation shares.

Trump’s use of Anker’s power bank has sparked Anker’s innovation, allowing its brand’s influence to spread from the cross-border e-commerce and investment circles to more ordinary domestic consumers.

Anker Innovation’s team also responded quickly to seize this unexpected wave of “wealth”. Currently, on Anke’s Douyin mall page, the power bank popularized by Trump has been added with the label “Knowing the same model/Trump certified”.

In the Internet age, some accidental events may make a brand popular or even reverse the fate of a company. For example, Dong Yuhui once shed tears in a deserted live broadcast room, which made Oriental Selection popular and changed the fate of the company.

It remains to be seen how much traffic and wealth Trump’s use of Anker’s innovative power banks will ultimately bring to him.

Is Trump using Anker products by chance or necessity?

Why can Anker’s innovative power bank reach users like Trump?

This is because Anker’s brand Anker has laid a deep foundation overseas. According to Anker Innovation, its brands currently reach 80 million loyal users in more than 100 countries and regions.

Of course, this data needs to be confirmed, but “Blue Ocean Yiguan” understands that Anker’s brand does have a strong presence on Amazon and physical stores.

On Amazon’s North American site, the monthly search volume for the “anker” brand word and related words has reached 577,200. Every day, a large number of consumers use “general big words + brand words” to search for Anker’s innovative products, such as “anker” charger” etc. These are precise flows directly to Anker products.

In the latest seller rankings on Amazon’s North American site, AnkerDirect’s store AnkerDirect jumped to second place, and the first-ranked store was “Pattern.” It is actually a multi-brand distributor in the United States, and its huge GMV is contributed by the multiple brands it represents.

So, from a single brand perspective, AnkerDirect is actually number one.

All of this provides the basis for Anke’s brand and products to come into the sight of Trump and his team.

In addition, Anker Innovation continues to deploy multiple channels and move from online to offline entities, further expanding its brand influence and product coverage.

Anker Innovation originated from Amazon and has always been highly dependent on Amazon. In the early years, almost 100% of Anker Innovation’s revenue came from Amazon. Later, Anker Innovation made a multi-channel layout:

• First, take into account B2B foreign trade channels; second, enter third-party channels such as eBay and SHEIN, and open independent stations at the same time; third, vigorously deploy offline channels.

Anker Innovation attaches great importance to the deployment of offline channels in particular, and has already settled in counters in hypermarkets such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Home Depot. As of last year, Anker had cooperated with more than 40,000 offline retail stores, mainly global retail stores, regional large-scale retail stores, independent 3C stores, etc., radiating to North America, Europe, the Middle East, Australia and other regions.

Anker’s innovative efforts have achieved two purposes: First, it has continuously downplayed “Amazon dependence” and reduced the risk of putting eggs in one basket.

• Second, continue to expand into multiple channels to help it grow from a “channel brand” relying on Amazon to a “multi-channel” brand. Therefore, on the basis of continuously improving brand influence and expanding product coverage, Anker’s innovative products have greatly increased the inevitability of entering Trump’s sight and successfully received this wave of wealth.

Anker’s innovation troubles

Although Anker Innovation received an unexpected surprise from Trump.

However, it still has to face a series of troubles and may not be able to laugh easily.

Anker Innovation’s peak market value once reached more than 80 billion yuan, and then fell back. In recent years, although its revenue and profits have continued to grow, its total market value has continued to hover at a low level, fluctuating around 30 billion yuan, and it is difficult to return to the peak of its market value.

“Blue Ocean Billion Views” believes that this is generally related to two reasons:

First, as mentioned above, Anker Innovation has made slow progress in the domestic market, which has disappointed many domestic investors.

The second, more important reason is related to Anker Innovation’s development strategy and the difficulties it brings. In particular, many investors are not very optimistic about Anker Innovation’s “shallow ocean strategy” and “horizontal brand and product development”. .

Anker Innovation has always focused on “shallow sea products”.

“Shallow sea products” refer to products with a wide audience and a certain total market value, but it is difficult to create a big brand.

Anker Innovation is currently focusing on chargers, power banks, smart speakers, Bluetooth headsets, etc. The technical barriers of these products are not high, and major manufacturers will not fully “bet”, thus leaving a certain space for latecomers like Anker.

In contrast, “deep-sea products” have a much larger total market value, such as mobile phones, computers and other products, and their “players” are generally super manufacturers, such as Xiaomi, Apple, IBM, Lenovo and other major manufacturers, which have also produced Big brands.

Anker Innovation avoids the deep-sea field and avoids head-to-head confrontation with powerful manufacturers, and focuses on shallow-sea products. There is no problem with its early positioning.

However, while avoiding the “interception” of giants in the “deep sea field”, Anker is also restricted by the ceiling of “shallow sea products”:

• First, the overall volume of the shallow-sea market is relatively small. Even if it develops multiple lines of products, it will be difficult to reach the volume of deep-sea products. It has to carry out “horizontal expansion.” However, excessive horizontal expansion has hindered Anker’s innovation.

Shallow seas cannot be dug deep, and if Anker Innovation wants to continue to increase revenue, it must continue to “go sideways” and add more “shallow sea product lines”, so Anker Innovation has embarked on a path of continuous horizontal expansion: from Anker Innovation From charging products to smart home and home security (Eufy), Soundcore (wireless audio), Nebula (projectors and other audio-visual entertainment), to AnkerMake (3D printer), AnkerWork (smart office), Anker Innovation continues to expand its categories and borders.

At the same time, under these brands, Anker Innovation is also continuing to expand its product lines, including vacuum cleaners, health scales, smart door locks and other products. Its latest move is that Anker has expanded its energy storage products – the Anker SOLIX series of products to provide energy for camping, RVs, home backup, etc.

• Second, excessive horizontal expansion dilutes the competitiveness of Anker Innovation：

Anker Innovation describes itself as “Procter & Gamble in consumer electronics.” What kind of existence is P&G? The first is a multi-brand layout, and the second is to stick to the segmentation direction in the same category and launch a brand in each direction. For example, in the field of shampoo, P&G launched Rejoice, Head & Shoulders, and Pantene.

Rejoice’s positioning is to make hair supple, Head & Shoulders’ positioning is to remove dandruff and maintain scalp health, and Pantene’s positioning is to repair and nourish damaged hair.

Anker Innovation is a true believer in Trout’s “Positioning” theory.

Multi-brand layout has both advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage is that each brand is stuck in a category, supporting each other, diversifying risks, and building brand equity value. The disadvantage is that each brand disperses resources and potential, dilutes R&D expenses, marketing expenses, etc., and needs to build so many brands at the same time. It will be more difficult to build awareness in the minds of users and become a leading brand.

Anker has endured the “pain of horizontal brand expansion.”

In terms of security smart cameras, Eufy security, a subsidiary of Anker Innovation, only ranks tenth in this field. Its products also have to compete with its self-operated AmazonRing on the Amazon platform, which has maintained the first market share for many years.

In the field of sweeping machines, iRobot and Ecovacs are sweeping the market, while Eufy Clean, a subsidiary of Anker Innovation, has a weak presence.

This is because Anker Innovation’s opponents are more focused than it is.

For example, in 2023, Roborock Technology, which mainly sells sweeping machines, spent 645 million yuan on research and development, mainly focusing on the research and development of sweeping robots, while Jimi Technology, which mainly sells projectors, spent 381 million yuan on research and development during the same period, mainly focusing on projectors. on the product.

In contrast, Anker Innovation’s R&D expenses of 1.414 billion yuan have to be allocated to a large number of brands and products, and the amount of money allocated to each brand and product is not much, which undoubtedly limits Anker’s development.

• Anker Innovation was overwhelmed and had to cut off many product lines: In 2022, Anker Innovation closed 10 product teams, including lawn mowing robots, handheld cleaning equipment, electric bicycles, etc., which affected more than 200 employees who resigned. people.

At the beginning of 2024, Anker Innovation issued an all-member letter announcing that starting from January 8, 2024, the team of the company’s high-end smart home brand Mach will be integrated into other teams of the company for integrated operation, and some members will leave due to personal wishes.

The Ankermacher team was founded in 2021 and specializes in household cleaning products such as wireless steam floor scrubbers, mopping robots, and vacuum-sweeping integrated robots.

The field of household cleaning is already overpopulated, with strong competitors such as Ecovacs and Stone Technology entrenched in it. Anker Innovation invested 300 million in R&D in three years in this field where there are many strong players, but the results were far less than expected. Therefore, it had to choose to let go in time.