Anker established a new company

Anker is not satisfied with being a hot seller and a leader in the charging field. It may also want to recreate an "Anker Kingdom" in other fields.

700,000 to establish a new company

On May 28, Anker established a new company in Shenzhen - Shenzhen Anker Zhigao Technology Co., Ltd.

Qichacha shows that the company only invested 700,000 yuan, the legal person is Huang Simin, and the 100% shareholder is Anker Innovations, which means that this is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Anker.

Huang Simin has 33 affiliated companies under his name. Except for two that have been deregistered, the remaining 31 are all related to Anker.

In terms of business categories, the new company is involved in intelligent robot sales, intelligent robot research and development, software development, domestic trade agency, home appliance sales , electronic product sales, technical services, technology development, technical consulting, technology exchanges, technology transfer, technology promotion, computer software and hardware and auxiliary equipment retail, and import and export of goods.

The company may mainly serve Anker's smart home brand eufy.

The founder of Anker has always had a "shallow sea theory": if consumer electronics are regarded as a vast ocean, then most categories will be concentrated in the shallow sea area, and a small number will be located in the deep sea area.

Low-priced and low-frequency consumer electronic products are in a shallow sea area and are easily conquered. It is precisely because of this recognition that Anker has been constantly improving its brand matrix and product matrix while maintaining its position as a leader in 3C overseas expansion, and has not limited itself to the shallow sea of ​​3C. Therefore, Anker once said that it wants to be the 3C version of P&G.

So in 2016, Anker extended its tentacles from 3C and incubated three sub-brands, Nebula, eufy and Soundcore, to support the three new products of projectors, home furnishings and audio.

After going public in 2020, Anker reintegrated its brand and has since formed a global brand matrix of six major brands: Anker, soundcore, eufy, Nebula, AnkerWork, and AnkerMake.

In fact, judging from Anker’s financial report, although the smart home category ’s revenue contribution is far less than that of the “big brother” - the charging category, its sales revenue has continued to increase since 2017, and its share in Anker’s total revenue has also continued to increase.

From 2017 to 2019, Anker's smart home category revenue reached 255 million yuan, 596 million yuan and 913 million yuan respectively, accounting for 6.54%, 11.39% and 13.74% of its total revenue .

After 2020, Anker reorganized its brand categories, and the revenue of smart security products and smart home products were merged under eufy . It was also after the listing that Anker vigorously promoted brand development. In the same year, the search indexes of brands such as Anker , eufy , and Soundcore on the Google platform increased by 156% , 700% , and 235% year-on-year compared with 2019, respectively .

However, Anker only entered the smart security product market in 2018, and its revenue from this category accounted for only 2.53% in 2019 .

eufy's two core product lines include eufy Security , which focuses on smart home security systems, and eufy Clean, which focuses on smart home deep cleaning solutions.

In the early days, eufy Clean was very popular overseas and once became the second largest smart home company on the Amazon platform after iRobot , the world's leading smart home company. However, perhaps due to its weak foundation in the smart home field, it was soon overtaken by dark horses such as Ecovacs and Stone Technology , its overseas peers. Stone Technology even won the first place in global sales in 2023.

At the same time, the weak eufy Clean was also affected by the industry downturn. In 2022, the growth rate of its smart sweeping robot products was only 7%, a cliff drop compared to 102.6% at its peak .

Anker has not been able to replicate its legend in the charging field in the smart home field, but that does not mean it will give up. Initiating brand reshaping, shifting product positioning to the mid-to-high-end, and establishing subsidiaries to continue to deepen into the home field are all strategic decisions made by Anker.

In January this year , Anker also exhibited its latest generation of sweeping robot eufy X10 Pro Omni at the CES , and the establishment of a new company also indicates that it will continue to invest in research and development in the cleaning field.

Fundraising 1.1 billion

In August last year , Anker announced that it would apply to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange for the issuance of convertible corporate bonds to unspecified objects for fundraising.

*Note: Issuing convertible bonds to unspecified objects means issuing convertible bonds to the general public. Unspecified objects refer to several people or a group of people who are not clear, specific, abstract, or individual; issuing to unspecified objects means that ordinary investors can subscribe for convertible bonds.

Specifically, in order to seize development opportunities in industries such as energy storage and smart hardware, enrich the product matrix, and further enhance the company's technological innovation capabilities and operating efficiency, meet the company's operating capital needs, and enhance the company's risk resistance, Anker will issue convertible bonds to raise funds in an amount not exceeding (including) RMB 1.105 billion .

In terms of the purpose of its fundraising, Anker stated that 200 million yuan will be used for the research and development and industrialization projects of portable and household energy storage products, 206 million yuan will be used for the research and development and industrialization projects of new-generation smart hardware products, 140 million yuan will be used for intelligent warehouse upgrade projects, 227 million yuan will be used for full-link digital operation center projects, and 331 million yuan will be used to supplement working capital .

In other words, part of the funds raised will also be used for Anker's smart innovative products including eufy .

However, the application was subsequently questioned by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. In addition to the difference in gross profit of the main business at home and abroad, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange also questioned:

1. Anker and its domestic subsidiaries have been subject to administrative penalties of more than RMB 10,000 in fines. Its subsidiary Haiyi Zhixin was fined RMB 53,400 in 2023 for the illegal act of selling products without product implementation standard numbers ;

2. During the reporting period , Anker had pending lawsuits overseas, including the Sloan class action lawsuit and the Fundamental patent lawsuit ;

3. The trust plan sold by China Merchants Bank, which Anker subscribed for RMB 100 million , involves litigation. Will there be any subsequent impact?

The inquiry letter also includes inquiries about specific business and whether the fundraising behavior complies with laws and regulations. Now the Shenzhen Stock Exchange has approved Anker to issue convertible bonds.

It is still unknown how much positive impact this fundraising will have on Anker's business, but as a major overseas company, Anker's annual revenue exceeds 10 billion. While most overseas companies are experiencing declining revenue and net profits, Anker can still maintain positive growth.

Last year, Anker's revenue reached a staggering 17.507 billion yuan and its net profit reached 1.615 billion yuan, an increase of 22.85% and 41.22 % respectively compared with 2022 .

Many securities institutions predict that Anker's annual revenue this year will exceed 20 billion yuan and its net profit will reach 2 billion yuan .

In the first quarter of this year, before the peak season, Anker had sold 4.378 billion yuan, a 30% increase over the same period in 2023, with a net profit of 311 million yuan . In contrast, UGREEN, which is currently listed, had revenue of 1.286 billion yuan and a net profit of 105 million yuan in the same period; in 2023, its full-year revenue was 4.803 billion yuan and its net profit was 394 million yuan.

How big is Anker's ship? It can generate the same annual revenue and profit of similar companies in just one quarter. In the future, it is unknown how far this ship can sail, and whether its ambition to become the P&G of the consumer electronics field can be satisfied remains to be seen.

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