Shallow seas sail out large ships, Anker Innovation aims to become the "Procter & Gamble" in the consumer electronics field

Ask AI · How does the Shallow Sea Strategy Drive Anker Innovation’s Diversified Expansion?

Introduction: Adhering to the “Shallow Sea Theory,” committed to “becoming Procter & Gamble in the consumer electronics field,” Anker Innovation has charted its own unique strategy.

Li Ping / Author Lishi Business Review / Producer

1

Revenue Breaks 30 Billion Yuan for the First Time

Recently, “Charging Treasure King” Anker Innovation released its full-year 2025 financial report and Q1 2026 financial report.

Data shows that in 2025, Anker Innovation achieved operating revenue of 30.51B yuan, up 23.49% year-over-year; net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 2.55B yuan, up 20.37%. Net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses attributable to the parent was 2.18B yuan, up 15.44%.

Looking at products, Anker Innovation’s three major categories all saw double-digit growth in sales. Among them, the company’s charging and energy storage products achieved revenue of 15.4B yuan, up 21.59%, accounting for 50.47% of total revenue; smart innovation products achieved revenue of 8.27B yuan, up 30.53%, accounting for 27.11%; smart audio-visual products achieved revenue of 6.83B yuan, up 20.05%, accounting for 22.39%.

While maintaining steady growth across the three major business segments, Anker Innovation’s profitability has also continued to improve. The annual report shows that in 2025, the overall gross profit margin was 45.07%, an increase of 1.40 percentage points from the previous year. Since 2021, Anker Innovation’s gross profit margin has achieved five consecutive increases.

In August 2024, during a live conversation between Elon Musk and former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, the “Anker” brand power bank used by Trump unexpectedly became a focus of attention among Chinese people, significantly boosting Anker Innovation’s visibility in the secondary market.

In fact, as a representative of Chinese consumer electronics brands going overseas, its influence in overseas markets extends far beyond the use by a well-known political figure. According to public information, Anker Innovation’s products have been sold to over 180 countries and regions, with more than 200 million users worldwide. In 2024, driven by strong sales of power banks, mobile phone batteries, home energy storage, and other products abroad, Anker Innovation achieved revenue of 24.71 billion yuan, up 41.14%, and net profit of 2.11B yuan, up 30.93%.

Since entering 2025, Anker Innovation has faced waves of tariff crises and product recalls, especially the large-scale global recall of power banks, which posed its most serious brand crisis since inception. Since June 2025, due to upstream battery cell suppliers unilaterally changing core materials, products faced “overheating and combustion risks,” leading Anker Innovation to conduct multiple large-scale recalls in China, Japan, the U.S., and other countries.

Statistics show that in 2025, Anker Innovation recalled at least 2.38 million power banks in total. Affected by this, the company provisioned 104 million yuan for “product quality assurance liabilities,” and recorded asset impairment losses of 365 million yuan for the year, a surge of 194.1% year-over-year, which is a major reason why net profit growth lagged behind revenue growth (despite gross margin improvements).

However, with the outbreak of the European energy crisis, Anker Innovation’s balcony photovoltaic and home energy storage products saw strong sales in Europe, effectively mitigating the impact of the recall crisis on its performance. The annual report shows that in 2025, the charging and energy storage business, including mobile charging, balcony charging, and energy storage charging, achieved revenue of 15.4B yuan, up 21.59%, maintaining a solid core growth.

Regionally, Anker Innovation’s overseas markets achieved revenue of 29.48B yuan, up 23.75%, accounting for 96.62%; among them, European sales reached 8.15B yuan, up 43.48%, accounting for 26.71%, with Europe gradually becoming the company’s “second main market.”

Affected by the power bank recall, Anker Innovation’s stock price has continued to weaken since August 2025. But with the release of the annual report, its market value has rebounded above 60 billion yuan.

The latest quarterly report shows that Anker Innovation’s revenue continues to grow steadily. Data indicates that from January to March 2026, revenue was 7.61B yuan, up 26.93%, with net profit attributable to parent of 472 million yuan, down 4.87% (affected by the fair value change of Nantong Core Technology); non-recurring net profit reached 547 million yuan, up 24.39%.

The day after the financial report was announced, Anker Innovation’s stock price surged 4.51%, with a maximum intraday increase approaching 9%. As of the most recent trading day, its market value was approximately 65.4 billion yuan, just a step away from the peak in August 2025.

“Our goal is to become Procter & Gamble in the consumer electronics field, or Texas Instruments.” With Anker Innovation’s steady revenue growth, this goal seems to be gradually becoming a reality.

2 From “Power Bank King” to Shallow Sea Hunter

Public information shows that Anker Innovation was formerly known as Hunan Haiyi Electronics Commerce Co., Ltd., founded in 2011 by former Google software engineer Yang Meng. It is reported that Yang Meng, while replacing the battery of his laptop, found that original batteries on Amazon were expensive, and third-party batteries of lower quality were common, revealing a huge gap in the charging accessories market. Subsequently, Yang Meng resigned from Google and registered the Anker brand in the U.S., then returned to China to establish Haiyi E-commerce and start his entrepreneurial journey.

In the early stages of development, Anker Innovation mainly used OEM/ODM models to sell mobile batteries, chargers, and other consumer electronics accessories on Amazon and other online channels. Relying on reliable quality and high cost performance, many of its products quickly gained popularity. Since 2012, Anker Innovation has consistently ranked among Amazon’s “Best Seller” lists, and Yang Meng earned his first pot of gold.

However, due to low industry entry barriers, the early OEM/ODM export model faced increasingly fierce competition, revealing limitations. Therefore, Anker Innovation decisively abandoned the OEM/ODM model and shifted to independent R&D. Benefiting from Google’s data-driven, “user-centric” philosophy, Yang Meng adopted a “VOC” (Voice of Customer) strategy in new product development, collecting large amounts of user reviews and feedback from Amazon and other platforms, then structurally analyzing them to guide product iteration and service improvements.

It is reported that before 2013, most chargers on the market used a single protocol, and different brands’ phones often required dedicated chargers, with low charging efficiency. To address this, Anker Innovation pioneered the launch of PowerIQ chips, enabling fast charging support for all devices through a single port, becoming a new industry standard. Later, Anker continued to iterate on this, introducing “full-time power distribution technology,” which dynamically adjusts power allocation across interfaces in real-time based on connected device needs (e.g., simultaneously charging a laptop and a phone), making charging faster and more efficient.

In 2018, Anker Innovation successfully applied gallium nitride (GaN) materials to chargers for the first time, effectively improving heat dissipation issues of traditional fast chargers. The widespread adoption of GaN technology allowed chargers to maintain high performance while significantly reducing size, driving innovation in the entire charging industry. In 2020, Apple announced that new iPhones would no longer come with a charger, but Anker’s chargers successfully appeared in Apple’s official stores and became the only mainland manufacturer with MFi certification.

While deeply cultivating the charging accessories market, Anker Innovation also entered other segments such as wireless audio and smart home, launching brands like Eufy and Nebula. In August 2020, Anker Innovation successfully listed on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM), raising 2.72B yuan, further fueling its diversified expansion.

Around 2020, Yang Meng officially proposed the famous “Shallow Sea Theory,” which advocates avoiding the trillion-dollar “deep sea” red markets like smartphones and PCs, and focusing on hundred-billion-dollar niche fields such as charging, energy storage, and smart home. These fields are moderate in scale, have unmet user pain points (e.g., slow charging, bulky products), and are not fully monopolized by giants. Subsequently, Anker Innovation gradually built a diversified business map centered on “smart charging and energy storage, smart home and innovation, and smart audio-visual” product lines.

As product categories expanded, Anker Innovation’s operating performance also continued to grow. Data shows that from 2020 to 2025, revenue increased from 9.35B yuan to 30.51B yuan, and net profit from 856 million yuan to 2.55B yuan, with impressive growth.

In fact, although Anker Innovation is known as the “Power Bank King” in the A-share market, its power bank products account for less than 12%. Meanwhile, with the rapid growth of smart innovation (including smart security, cleaning robots, and 3D printing) and smart audio-visual (including Soundcore audio devices and Nebula smart projectors), Anker Innovation has successfully opened up second and third growth curves through a multi-brand matrix, further validating Yang Meng’s “Shallow Sea Theory” and the company’s successful diversification strategy.

3 “Overseas Benchmark” Glory and Concerns

In recent years, as domestic market competition intensifies, going abroad has become a key strategy for breaking through. Anker Innovation was quick to seize the opportunities on overseas e-commerce platforms like Amazon, impressing global consumers with high-quality products and top engineering thinking, successfully avoiding the internal competition and price wars of the domestic red ocean, thus gaining higher brand premiums and profit margins.

However, as a recognized “overseas benchmark,” Anker Innovation’s rapid development also exposes deep-rooted shortcomings. First, in terms of sales regions, Anker Innovation relies heavily on Europe and America. The annual report shows that in 2025, domestic revenue was only 1.03B yuan, up 16.57%, accounting for less than 4%.

It is evident that overseas markets, especially the U.S., remain the main source of revenue, making the company highly sensitive to international trade fluctuations. In April 2025, U.S. tariffs against China soared to historic highs, sharply reducing Chinese exports to the U.S., and Anker Innovation’s stock price was under pressure. Data shows that from April 3 to April 9, 2025, its stock price fell nearly 30% over five trading days, with a market value evaporating over 15 billion yuan.

On the sales channel front, Anker Innovation still depends heavily on Amazon. Data indicates that in 2025, Amazon sales accounted for 15.96B yuan, or 52.29% of total revenue, far exceeding the industry safety threshold of 30%.

In fact, Anker Innovation has long been aware of the risks of channel dependence and has been promoting a “de-Amazonization” multi-channel strategy. It has increased investments in independent websites and offline channels. In 2025, its official website sales reached 3.14B yuan, up 25.21%, accounting for 10.13%.

Offline, it has entered major retail channels such as Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Costco, Argos, and others, with offline revenue continuing to grow. In 2025, offline sales reached 9.09B yuan, up 27.81%, accounting for 28.77%.

Overall, dependence on overseas markets and Amazon remains significant. To diversify, Anker Innovation has announced plans to list in Hong Kong. In December 2025, it officially submitted an application to HKEX. The funds raised are mainly intended for product R&D, supply chain optimization, and strengthening global market strategies. It plans to increase investment in potential markets like Latin America and Southeast Asia, while enhancing international brand image and competitiveness.

Always questioned, never surpassed.

It can be seen that Anker Innovation has successfully applied the VOC strategy systematically and extensively to user review data on Amazon and other platforms, standing out among export companies. Currently, VOC has become the core driver of product iteration and innovation at Anker Innovation, which is worth Chinese consumer electronics companies learning from. Even after experiencing tariff crises and large-scale recalls in 2025, Anker Innovation responded with a solid “20%+ growth” performance, further emphasizing its founder Yang Meng’s “Shallow Sea Theory” and its strategic shift towards diversification, gaining more investor confidence.