How did Anker, an Amazon-Native brand hit almost €2 billion in sales?

Over the last decade, a sea of Amazon-native brands were born. With success stories like Dollar Shave Club and Anker which received investments from IDG and CITIC Capital before going public and raised almost 60 million in the private market.

The Story

Anker Innovations is a Chinese brand founded in 2011 by Steven Yang, a former Google senior engineer. Anker is obsessed with keeping all the smart devices in your life at full charge. It follows the “low price, good quality, high Amazon rating” strategy. For them, Amazon is not a channel, but rather the channel. In a 2017 interview held by the U.S. media The Verge, Steven admitted that he knew little about the production of electronic devices before starting up his business.

Anker is beating brands like Apple in their own game

What we focused on in the previous post " research, research, and more research is exactly what Anker has done. Anker’s success is born from the failures of premier manufacturers like Apple and Samsung. Where those companies introduce points of friction — like ever-thinner devices with short battery lives — This has given room to companies like Anker, with the low overhead of an e-commerce business, to sell similar products of near-identical quality for €10 to €20 cheaper.

Where Apple and others failed to develop products of their own like multi-port wall plugs and portable chargers, Anker saw the opportunity and capitalized on it. The company is quick to fill gaps created by smartphone manufacturers. When Apple removed the headphone jack on the iPhone 7, for instance, Anker saw a giant opportunity to begin producing new dongles and other cable adapters to help consumers adjust.

The revenue breakdown of Anker

According to Marketplace Pulse, Amazon is still more than half of Anker’s business, but it is shrinking. In 2021, only 54% of its revenue came from Amazon. Five years before, in 2016, the ratio was 80%. It started selling through its D2C websites and launched on other marketplaces. However, the growth of offline channels through retailers like Fnac, Media Markt, and Expert has been the most impactful.

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According to Anker’s financial statements, its total sales in 2021 reached €1.80 billion. €979 million was sold on Amazon, €652 million in brick-and-mortar stores, and €160 million through other marketplaces and owned websites. The overall business grew 34%, while Amazon-only sales grew 19%, both above the e-commerce average.

How is Anker innovations doing today?

Due to an over 50% rise in raw material and freight costs, Anker's stock price reached an all-time low. The plunge in shares is the result of multiple factors. Notably, the shock of Amazon's industry, the shortage of chips, and the rising costs of raw materials, promotion, and logistics have severely restricted Anker's profit growth.

While the company's revenue increased, its growth rate declined. From 2019 to 2021, the company's operating income growth rates were 27.19%, 40.54%, and 34.45%, respectively, and the growth rates for the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company stood at 68.85%, 18.7%, and 14.7%, respectively.

The future looks bright for Anker

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The global power bank & charging cable market size was valued at €16.54 billion in 2019, and is projected to reach €21.22 billion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 3.4% from 2020 to 2027.

Smartphones have become a crucial part of our day-to-day life and are equipped with powerful operating systems such as Android and iOS that allow us to connect with our target audience, run multimedia players, access video calling and stay connected to the external world via high-speedernet services, which leads to high consumption of battery in smartphones.

Since Anker established itself as an innovator and market leader in intelligent charging solutions we don't have to worry about the steady growth of Anker Innovations.

Wondering how we can make your brand a success story on marketplaces? Feel free to book a free audit with me below where we conduct in-depth research and create a solid battle plan that will grow your business in no time. ⬇️