Just two months after the power bank "security scandal" swept the world, Anker Innovation quietly pressed the accelerator button to go public in Hong Kong. Multiple media reports said that this A-share "cross-border e-commerce leader" has officially launched the listing process in Hong Kong and plans to raise approximately US$500 million.
On the one hand, there is a crisis of confidence that is still brewing over the recall of more than 2.27 million products worldwide, and on the other hand, the intensive "A+H" capital layout. This series of operations by Anker Innovation has filled the market with doubts.
Behind this seemingly contradictory capital operation, it profoundly reflects the severe challenges faced by Anker Innovation, a star company going overseas, to its successful business model after ten years of rapid development.
Underneath the halo are the structural risks of Anker Innovation's high reliance on overseas markets and a single category of power banks; behind its sustained high-growth performance are the financial worries of rising asset-liability ratios year by year and sharp shrinking of operating cash flow; under the brand slogan of "extreme innovation" are the quality control crises exposed by constant overseas litigation and five large-scale product recalls in two years. The "smile curve" OEM model that was once regarded as the norm by founder Yang Meng is now being torn apart by the out-of-control supply chain.
Is this IPO in Hong Kong a vigorous expansion, or a move to "continue life" after being trapped in a crisis?
The rise of the “cross-border brother” and two major “dependence syndromes”
The growth history of Anker Innovation is a textbook-level success story of Chinese brands going global.
The story begins in 2011. The founder, Yang Meng, a senior software engineer born in the 1980s who went from Peking University to Google headquarters, had a keen insight into a huge market gap. At that time, on Amazon in the United States, consumers who wanted to replace laptop batteries had to either choose expensive original products, or have to endure cheap "white brands" of worrying quality. In the middle, there is a huge blue ocean market for cost-effective brand products.
Yang Meng immediately resigned and returned to China, where he founded Anke Innovation in a residential building in Changsha. He accurately grasped the information gap and value gap between China's strong supply chain capabilities and the global consumer market, and pursued the "smile curve" theory - outsourcing the thinnest and most "unwieldy" manufacturing links, while the company focused on high value-added R&D, design and brand marketing at both ends of the curve.
This "asset-light, brand-heavy" approach was perfect at the time. Anker Innovation entered the charging accessories market with the Anker brand. With close to original quality, more affordable prices and excellent user experience, it quickly carved a niche on Amazon. In 2015, Anker has become the number one selling brand in the global charging category on Amazon. In 2019, its data cable products passed Apple's stringent MFi certification and successfully entered Apple's official channels. In 2020, the company successfully listed on the A-share GEM, and its market value once approached 60 billion yuan, becoming a veritable "cross-border e-commerce leader".
However, this successful model has also paved the way for Anker Innovation to rely heavily on the single channel of overseas markets and to rely heavily on charging products. In today's market environment, these two major "dependence syndromes" have gradually evolved into constraints on its development.
From the perspective of channels, from 2021 to 2024, Anker Innovation's overseas revenue accounted for more than 96%, of which the North American market contributed nearly half. Among online channels, sales from one Amazon platform will account for 54.3% of the company's total revenue in 2024. This structure makes its performance extremely vulnerable to changes in the international political and economic environment, tariff policies, shipping costs and platform rules, and its ability to resist risks is very fragile.
From the perspective of reliance on a single charging product, although founder Yang Meng proposed the "Shallow Sea Strategy" as early as 2020, he tried to copy the successful experience of power banks to multiple segmented tracks such as wireless audio, smart security, and 3D printing, in order to get rid of the single label of "power bank No. 1 brother". But to date, the company's product structure has not been fundamentally changed.
In 2024, charging and energy storage products will still contribute 51% of the company's revenue. The diversification strategy has been implemented for many years and as many as 10 product lines have been closed, but it has never been able to create another "Anker". The company's "Charging Products Company" label still hasn't been removed.
Financial pressure behind high growth
On the surface, Anker Innovation’s performance is still impressive. From 2020 to 2024, the company's revenue increased from 9.35 billion yuan to 24.71 billion yuan, and net profit increased from 860 million yuan to 2.11 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of more than 30%. In the first quarter of 2025, revenue and net profit achieved year-on-year growth of 37% and 60% respectively.
However, under this rapid growth report card, financial pressure is quietly accumulating. The recall incident in June 2025 will undoubtedly sharply amplify this pressure.
The first is the "changing face" of cash flow. In the first quarter of 2025, with both revenue and profits increasing significantly, Anker Innovation's net cash flow from operating activities unexpectedly turned from positive to negative, recording -288 million yuan, compared with a net inflow of 181 million yuan in the same period last year. This indicates that the company's working capital is becoming tight. The global recall that started in June involves huge refund, exchange, logistics and destruction costs, which is expected to further intensify its cash flow pressure.
Anker Innovation's asset-liability ratio also continues to rise. Data shows that Anker Innovation's asset-liability ratio has climbed all the way from 31.46% in 2022 to 44.92% at the end of 2024. Among them, current liabilities have grown particularly rapidly, with a year-on-year increase of 72.5% at the end of 2024. Short-term borrowings and non-current liabilities due within one year have both surged. This suggests that Anker Innovation is increasingly relying on debt to support its operations and expansion.
"Kuaima Financial Media" also found that although Anker Innovation is positioned as a mid-to-high-end product, as the homogeneous competition in the charging equipment industry intensifies, it has to adopt a price reduction strategy to maintain market share. In 2024, the company's net profit margin will deteriorate marginally, falling by 0.73 percentage points year-on-year.
Against this background, it is not difficult to understand the company's motivation for listing in Hong Kong. "Replenishing blood" is its most direct and urgent need. Whether it is to deal with the huge financial impact caused by the recall or to support its continued investment in new areas, a large amount of funds is required.
After five recalls in two years, cracks appeared in the "smile curve"
What worries the market the most about this IPO in Hong Kong is its intensifying quality control crisis. A global recall has nakedly exposed the Achilles’ heel of Anker’s innovative “smile curve” business model to the public.
The recall in June 2025 is unprecedented in scale. Anker Innovation recalled more than 2.27 million power banks globally due to the upstream battery cell supplier's unauthorized changes to core materials, which resulted in the risk of overheating and combustion in the product. This is the company’s fifth public product recall within two years since February 2023, and the issues all point to battery safety hazards.
This crisis goes straight to the root of its proud “OEM model”. Production can be outsourced, but responsibility cannot. Anker Innovation completely hands over the production process to third parties and focuses on R&D and sales. This model seems lightweight, but it loses control over the production process and supply chain. When quality risks strike, the "smile curve" magnifies the problem infinitely.
To make matters worse, the company's "showy operations" in crisis management further aggravated the trust crisis. Some consumers broke the news that the recall plan was suspected of "double standards". Overseas users could easily replace it or get gift cards, while domestic users were once required to record a dangerous video of "power bank soaked in salt water for 24 hours." Subsequent "upgrades and replacements" were complained by users as "downgrades and replacements", with situations such as "magnetic models changing to plug-in models" and "capacity shrinking from 20,000 mAh to 10,000 mAh". Improper handling of these details turned a brand responsibility action that could have turned a crisis into an opportunity into a public relations disaster that harmed users twice.
Anker's current innovation, high reliance on overseas markets and single categories, rising financial pressure, and quality control and trust crises caused by the OEM model, together constitute the "impossible triangle" of its development.
Going to Hong Kong for an IPO is not so much a glorious expansion as a "replenishment of wounds" under pressure. Can the US$500 million raised help it survive this crisis and find a more diversified and stable growth path? We'll see.