---
title: "Will Anker Innovations, which is increasing its investment in energy storage and going public in Hong Kong, become increasingly weak in its expansion?"
type: "News"
locale: "en"
url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/277250136.md"
description: "Anker Innovations plans to continue its expansion in 2026, aiming to list on the Hong Kong stock market and accelerate its energy storage business layout, committed to building a full-stack self-developed energy storage technology platform. Despite the increasing uncertainty in the external environment, Anker's success was previously attributed to its efficient innovation during the boom period of cross-border e-commerce. However, it now faces challenges such as lagging organizational capabilities and innovation dilemmas, and is at a critical juncture for strategic adjustment"
datetime: "2026-02-26T13:04:08.000Z"
locales:
  - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/277250136.md)
  - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/277250136.md)
  - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/277250136.md)
---

# Will Anker Innovations, which is increasing its investment in energy storage and going public in Hong Kong, become increasingly weak in its expansion?

![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://inews.gtimg.com/om_bt/OAWAJ0sy7F88xbepf6LCIeZOY9wd8vbNXkrXJzb9ySDVAAA/641?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg)

At the beginning of 2026, the overseas benchmark Anker Innovations has been making frequent moves, once again becoming the focus of the industry. Following the announcement in mid-November 2025 to initiate plans for a Hong Kong stock listing, on February 13, 2026, Anker Innovations disclosed its latest layout in the energy storage business on the investor interaction platform, stating that the company is committed to building a full-stack self-developed energy storage technology platform covering power management, intelligent power distribution, and energy efficiency optimization, with a diverse product matrix comprehensively covering energy needs from home to outdoor.

With the implementation of previous organizational optimizations and the accelerated advancement of the energy storage business, this Chinese cross-border leader, with over 96% of its revenue coming from overseas, is at a critical juncture of strategic adjustment. At the same time, the surge in external operational uncertainties has led Chinese cross-border brands to undergo a collective major test.

**How did Anker Innovations get started? Once regarded as a textbook benchmark, why does it become increasingly weak as it expands? And why do the challenges it faces today represent the fate of all overseas brands tomorrow?**

Anker is standing at the crossroads of cross-border brands transitioning from the era of dividends to the era of capabilities. The challenges faced by its "shallow sea strategy," obstacles in category expansion, lagging organizational capabilities, and innovation trapped in minor improvements have all made Anker Innovations a more significant case for industry observation.

![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://inews.gtimg.com/om_bt/OrY3Sii5UtWfRD2g3uoF10nm3oHV0Y2sMixyD0jIWomhMAA/641?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg)

**What dividends drove its rise?**

**The dual support of efficiency arbitrage and trust dividends**

Many attribute Anker Innovations' success to "powerful products," but the truth may be that its rise is an inevitable result of hitting the maximum dividend window of cross-border e-commerce.

Anker's early rise was primarily due to capturing three major dividends in the development of cross-border e-commerce. In 2011, Anker entered the PC battery category on the Amazon platform, accurately identifying the market pain points of high-priced, low-cost performance original products and low-priced, low-quality generic products. By positioning itself as "close to original factory quality + significantly lower price," it hit the demand middle ground and completed the first step of efficiency-type innovation.

At that time, Amazon was in a phase of neutral traffic distribution, an unpolluted evaluation system, and an urgent need for quality supply, which amplified Anker's strategy of "product reliability" — through high ratings, low returns, and stable performance, it leveraged overseas consumers' low expectations of "Made in China" to achieve trust arbitrage, converting the above-average product experience into brand premium.

With the dual support of the supply chain and the platform, Anker built its early core competitiveness. Relying on China's mature supply chain system, Anker achieved a balance between cost and quality control; leveraging Amazon's evaluation system, it created a closed loop from user feedback (VOC) to product improvement: analyzing millions of reviews, examining interface heat, charging issues, and compatibility problems, and rapidly iterating products This extreme user-driven model has allowed Anker to form a generational gap among peers who rely on branding and cost-cutting. In March 2019, Anker Innovations officially obtained Apple MFi certification, becoming the first third-party charging brand authorized by Apple globally. This move upgraded Anker from a "substitute" to an "internal player," successfully entering the Apple Store and obtaining the key ticket for brand premium.

However, hidden dangers are also present.

Many industry insiders believe that Anker's early business was essentially a "substitute business," dependent on existing device scenarios, lacking pricing power and standard-setting authority; although there were core breakthroughs in new technology applications, its core capabilities were highly tied to the "supply chain + Amazon platform." When supply chain capabilities are replicated, platform rules tighten, and traffic costs rise, this advantage will quickly fade.

More critically, the growth achieved through efficiency arbitrage has led the company to form a path dependence of "amplifying the known correct," resulting in insufficient investment in long-term research and uncertain innovation, laying the groundwork for subsequent growth stagnation.

**Why did the shallow sea strategy fail?**

**Mismatch between category expansion and organizational capability**

As early dividends faded, Anker chose to break the deadlock with a "shallow sea strategy" — avoiding the red ocean competition in "deep sea" categories like smartphones, and seeking opportunities among hundreds of subcategories in charging, smart cleaning, 3D printing, etc., attempting to achieve scale growth through horizontal extension across multiple categories.

Founder Yang Meng publicly recalled that after proposing the "shallow sea strategy" in 2020, Anker's five business units began aggressive expansion from over ten categories, reaching a product line of 27 by 2022. However, this expansion ultimately fell into the dilemma of "increased categories, organizational burden, and low win rates," with nearly 20 of the 27 product lines failing to form competitiveness, leading to the shutdown of 10 lines starting in the fourth quarter of 2022, ultimately shrinking to 17, while the brand was simultaneously streamlined to three core segments: Anker (charging/storage), Soundcore (smart audio), and Eufy (smart home/automation).

Several industry insiders close to Anker analyze that the core pain point of the shallow sea strategy is not a mistake in category selection, but rather a mismatch between organizational capability and strategic needs.

The essence of the shallow sea strategy is to win dozens of segmented category competitions simultaneously, requiring a large number of "entrepreneurial-type leaders" who can build categories from 0 to 1. These individuals must have complete decision-making authority and their rewards must be highly tied to results.

However, Anker's talent selection remains at the level of "experience and background," with headquarters exerting excessive control over the front end, reducing category leaders to execution levels, lacking independent decision-making authority; the evaluation system still leans towards short-cycle ROI, with low tolerance for exploratory projects, failing to incentivize long-term innovation.

This **"calling for innovation in thought, but following processes in action"** situation has led many observers to view multi-category expansion as more about "piling SKUs" rather than truly delving into categories.

At the same time, R&D investment has been diluted, and various categories lack true synergy in technology and scenarios In the energy storage sector, Anker ventured into mobile energy storage as early as 2015, but due to low business priority and insufficient resource investment, it remained in the exploratory stage for a long time, only restarting its product line in 2020. In contrast, Zhenghao went all-in on energy storage starting in 2019, quickly rising due to its product and channel advantages. From 2021 to 2022, it completely surpassed Anker during the European energy crisis. Although Anker is now ramping up (with projected energy storage revenue of 3 billion yuan in 2024), it still ranks second in the industry.

In the 3D printing field, its eufyMake E1 (UV texture printer) set a crowdfunding record of $46.76 million on Kickstarter. However, as a new category, it still faces challenges such as consistency in mass production, high consumable costs, and an incomplete ecosystem. Although it differs from the bamboo track, it still needs to compete with professional players in vertical fields.

The result of multi-line operations is that Anker finds it difficult to achieve absolute leadership in most new categories — **the business leaders are facing CEO-level full commitment**, and the dispersed resources make it hard to form differentiated advantages.

Even more critically, the benefits of the VOC user feedback system are diminishing. Currently, there is an overload of reviews and widespread review manipulation, causing VOC to transform from a "user insight tool" into a "noise filter," with high costs making it difficult to sift through effective information. At the same time, VOC can only address "current pain points" and cannot anticipate "future demands."

This has led Anker into a **"micro-innovation trap"**: it excels at improving existing products but cannot disrupt category trends; it is good at fixing bugs but cannot define new scenarios.

As the benefits wane, its capabilities have not kept pace. In the industry’s view, this may be one of the reasons why Anker is becoming increasingly fatigued as it expands.

In the next article, we will discuss the breakthrough path of "Anker Innovations."

Written by: Nandu · Bay Finance Society reporter Chen Yingshan

### Related Stocks

- [00668.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/00668.HK.md)

## Related News & Research

- [Anker's 3-in-1 Foldable Wireless Charger Drops to $99.74 for Prime Day](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290585601.md)
- [CATL targets up to 20,000 vehicles with sodium-ion batteries](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290951730.md)
- [Top CATL boss cools expectations over next major leap in EV batteries](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290789150.md)
- [LiTime Brings Off-Grid LiFePO4 Battery Solutions for Reliable, Low-Maintenance Outdoor Security Monitoring](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290911791.md)
- [MVV Trading signs fixed-price deal with MaxSolar for 52 MWp PV and 30 MW battery co-location marketing](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290805525.md)