The secrets of going global hidden in the financial reports: Penetration of IP culture, breakthrough in costs, and reconstruction of the ecosystem |
Author | Miao Yue Editor | He Yang
Source | ebrun.com
The globalization narrative of Chinese enterprises has reached a watershed.
While POP MART's LABUBU trendy toys are sweeping across European and American social media, Ninebot's intelligent lawn mowing robots are breaking into North American manors, and Anker Innovations is refreshing the overseas expansion record with an annual revenue of 24.7 billion yuan, a silent revolution is taking place. Chinese brands are no longer just "porters of the supply chain," but are重构ing the rules of the global market game with technology, IP, and ecosystems.
By reviewing the latest financial reports of 20 representative enterprises, we can see the tension of this transformation: the overseas revenue proportion of domestic new consumer brands going global has generally exceeded 30%, and the revenue growth rate of leading cross - border e - commerce enterprises has remained above 20%. At the same time, the profit performance of various enterprises has shown a greater divergence - POP MART's overseas gross profit margin is as high as 71.3%, while the net profit margin of cross - border e - commerce enterprises mostly hovers in single digits.
Behind the coexistence of "high growth" and "low profit" is the evolution of the logic of global competition: from "traffic arbitrage" to "value deep - digging," from "scale priority" to "agile survival," and from "passive compliance" to "active risk control."
In addition, with the Trump administration's tariff stick coming down, Chinese enterprises also need to face three ultimate questions: How to build brand consensus in the face of cultural barriers? How to build a moat under technological blockade? How to forge profitability in the cost black hole?
Perhaps the answers are hidden in the details of the financial reports: Aukey Technology uses its logistics business to hedge against price wars, Jihong Co., Ltd.重构s the rules of the Southeast Asian market with AI, and Roborock Technology dilutes North American risks with the European market... These explorations may not be mature yet, but they together outline the outline of a new era: The globalization of Chinese brands is shifting from "borrowing a boat to go out to sea" to "building a boat to sail far."
The "New Triangle Law" of Consumer Brands Going Global: IP Economy, Technological Breakthrough, and Regional Attack
With the end of the 2024 financial reporting season, the Chinese brand going global track has reached a historic turning point: enterprises such as POP MART and Miniso are reshaping their growth curves with a global IP strategy, while Ninebot and Roborock Technology are responding to trade frictions with technological breakthroughs...
What we can see from them is that brands going global are moving from "product output" to "cultural penetration" - a transformation centered around the IP economy, in - depth localization, and supply chain重构 is taking place.
The global phenomenal explosion of POP MART's LABUBU confirms the penetrating power of the IP economy. According to POP MART's financial report, in 2024, the revenue of the IP series to which LABUBU belongs increased by 726.6% year - on - year to 3.04 billion yuan, driving the overseas revenue proportion close to 40%. From the "word - of - mouth" promotion of European and American superstar Rihanna to Thai top - star Lisa, LABUBU, in the form of trendy toys, has broken through cultural circles and become a social currency for the global young generation. Behind this is the support of POP MART's "platform - based IP incubation system" - signing global artists, grading and operating resources, and making continuous content investments. Its IP matrix has formed a composite competitiveness similar to that of "Disney + Lego."
Miniso, on the other hand, is重构ing its brand gene through "co - branded IP + interest - based consumption." In 2024, its cooperation with global IPs such as "Black Myth: Wukong" and "Harry Potter" promoted its overseas revenue to increase by 42% year - on - year to 6.68 billion yuan. At the same time, it has also spread Chinese IP derivatives to 3,000 overseas stores around the world and opened a 3,000 - square - meter global flagship store in Jakarta, Indonesia, to enhance the customer experience.
Obviously, through the overseas expansion paths of POP MART and Miniso, we can see that IP is surpassing product functions and becoming the discourse system for brand globalization. From single - image output to content ecosystem construction, the IP economy is also helping Chinese players achieve a three - level leap from "symbol - story - emotion."
Ninebot's financial report reveals a typical sample of how overseas expansion enterprises can obtain incremental growth. After the shared mobility devices (electric balance scooters, scooters), which used to contribute the main revenue, entered the stock market overseas, the intelligent lawn mowing robots successfully took over. In 2024, the sales revenue of the Segway Navimow series skyrocketed, confirming the role of technological iteration in driving market demand - the third - generation lawn mowing robots can cover an area of more than 10,000 square meters, which also means the leap of the product from the household scenario to the commercial scenario or high - end manor market.
In contrast, Roborock Technology became one of the first "victims" of the Trump administration's additional tariffs on China. Although its overseas revenue in 2024 reached 6.39 billion yuan (+51%), exceeding domestic revenue for the first time, the structural risk of a relatively high proportion of the North American market was instantly triggered under the background of additional tariffs. However, Roborock Technology also stated in its financial report that it is hedging risks through diversified layout, including accelerating the expansion of the European and Asian - Pacific markets, promoting domestic sales growth, and planning to use a "price matrix" strategy to cover more consumer levels.
Similarly, when facing the tariff issue, Ecovacs also mentioned in its financial report that it is accelerating the layout of diversified markets. For example, it has refined regional management in the European market and accelerated the penetration and layout of offline channels; in key market regions such as France and Italy, it has achieved high growth and market share by significantly increasing store coverage and successfully breaking through the local offline core channels. During the reporting period, the operating revenues of the Ecovacs and Tineco brands in the European market increased by 51.6% and 64.0% respectively compared with the previous year.
The "New Triangle Law" of Consumer Brands Going Global: IP Economy, Technological Breakthrough, and Regional Attack
When Anker Innovations refreshed the industry record with an annual revenue of 24.7 billion yuan, no one can deny that cross - border e - commerce is undergoing a qualitative change from traffic dividends to technological barriers. Through the financial report data of seven representative enterprises, we can catch a glimpse of the new business logic of this trillion - scale track.
On the one hand, when the consumer electronics industry is generally in the dilemma of "diseconomies of scale," Anker Innovations is going against the trend with a gross profit margin of 43.67% and a net profit margin of 8.95%. Its product pricing power comes from an annual R & D investment of 2.108 billion yuan, which is equivalent to converting 8.5% of its revenue into a technological moat. What's more noteworthy is the qualitative change in its channel structure: the revenue of its seven independent websites has exceeded 2.5 billion yuan, with a year - on - year growth rate of 101%, and the growth rate gap with the Amazon channel has widened to 67 percentage points.
Behind the annual revenue of 14.7 billion yuan of GreatStar Industrial, innovation is the core driving force for the company's development. Last year, GreatStar Industrial invested 366 million yuan in R & D and designed 1,937 new products, enabling the traditional manufacturing industry of hand tools to achieve a 36.18% increase in net profit. In addition, currently, GreatStar Industrial is also improving its global production and supply chain management system, continuing to add manufacturing capacity in Southeast Asia, and accelerating the implementation of global production capacity in countries including Mexico, Singapore, and Malaysia to ensure that the company is not limited to any single country or production capacity.
UGREEN's overseas market contributed 3.55 billion yuan in revenue, a year - on - year increase of 46.5%, accounting for 57.47% of the total revenue. UGREEN accurately captured the opportunities in the "time - backtracking market" and replicated the path of China's consumption upgrade in countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines: for users in the stage of per capita GDP of 3,000 - 5,000 US dollars, it launched low - price and low - power charging heads suitable for the local power grid (in the Philippines); in the Singapore market, it focused on high - power gallium nitride chargers and MFi - certified products, achieving parallel development of low - tier market penetration and high - end market breakthrough, as well as refined operation of "one - country - one - policy."
Chenbei Technology's 33% market share in the North American air purifier market verifies the value of in - depth operation of vertical categories. The proportion of its revenue from non - Amazon channels has increased to 25.5%, and the single - product sales volume on the TikTok channel has exceeded 100,000 units, indicating that the brand is beginning to have more autonomy in traffic.
The 55.82% revenue growth rate of Jackery shows the explosive power of technology - driven enterprises: the barrier built by 1,720 patents has enabled its outdoor power supply to achieve a technological breakthrough of "3 kWh capacity in a 2 - kWh volume," redefining the standards of the portable energy storage industry.
The reversal of ZSY Group from a loss of 270 million yuan in 2023 to a profit of 150 million yuan in 2024 is essentially a preliminary success in the transformation from a "stock - based thinking" to a "brand - based thinking." In 2024, the number of ZSY Group's SPU decreased sharply from an average of 10,000 models per year to 3,000 models, and it focused on operating ten core brands.
Xingxing Co., Ltd. interprets another kind of survival wisdom: by taking advantage of the traffic dividend of DHgate's B2b2C platform, it tells the story of how Chinese - made products have achieved a 67% increase in net profit through a "high - cost - performance + omni - channel distribution" strategy, which also proves that the flexibility of the supply chain is more important than simple scale.
Supply Chain Switching, AI Revolution, and Compliance Challenges: The Ultimate Survival Propositions for Cross - border E - commerce
The cross - border e - commerce industry is entering a period of in - depth operation from the wild growth era. The 2024 financial reporting season has become a watershed: enterprises that can build user awareness in vertical fields,重构 efficiency with technology, and form an ecological closed - loop in regional markets will get the ticket to cross the cycle; for enterprises still trapped in price wars and cost dilemmas, the time window for their transformation is also narrowing.
As the leading enterprise in the cross - border e - commerce of home furnishings, ZEOTOP's revenue in 2024 was 8.124 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 33.74%, but the net profit decreased by 19.21% year - on - year to 334 million yuan. Two notable growth drivers include: first, the optimization of the warehousing systems in Europe and the United States, with the average freight in France, Italy, and Spain decreasing by 0.7 - 2.4 US dollars per package, and the proportion of self - initiated orders in the US warehouse increasing to 27.75% in December 2024; second, channel diversification, with a decrease in dependence on Amazon and a significant increase in the revenue proportion of emerging channels such as Temu, OTTO, and independent websites. Among them, Temu became the fourth - largest sales channel in just 9 months.
Aukey Technology's revenue in 2024 was 10.71 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 23.34%, making it one of the few cross - border e - commerce enterprises to enter the "billion - yuan club." Its growth engines showed a divergence: on the one hand, commodity sales were under pressure - the revenue of the core category of furniture and home furnishings increased by 14.6% year - on - year, but the overall commodity sales revenue decreased by 17.6% year - on - year, and the gross profit margin dropped by 3 percentage points to 30.8%, reflecting the fierce price war in the industry;
On the other hand, Aukey's logistics business has risen. The revenue of its logistics solutions in 2024 was 2.441 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 47.7%. The intelligent warehouse network that processes more than one million orders per day on average has transformed from a cost center into a profit growth point.
Aukey's transformation reveals two major trends in the industry: first, logistics capabilities are being upgraded from supporting services to core competitiveness, and the large - scale operation of overseas warehouses can hedge against the decline in commodity sales gross profit; second, there are still opportunities in vertical categories such as power tools. The relevant products of these categories have achieved a 113.6% growth through channels such as Costco, proving that the combination of offline channels and professional categories can break through the online traffic dilemma.
SVB's revenue in 2024 was 10.275 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 56.55%, but the net profit decreased by 36.19%. Its excessive dependence on the North American market (accounting for 88.08%) and the Amazon channel (accounting for 82.08%) made it significantly affected by freight and platform policies. The over - stocking of non - clothing categories led to inventory backlogs, forcing it to clear inventory at low prices and compressing profit margins. Its plan in 2025 is to expand the European market and build a factory in Vietnam, but the lag in supply chain adjustment remains to be seen.
In sharp contrast to the leading enterprises, more enterprises are caught in the "scale illusion." Huakaiyibai's revenue increased by 38.42%, but its net profit plummeted by 48%; Legrand Group's revenue increased by 45.33%, but its net profit was halved...
The重构 of platform rules has become an important variable in the industry: the advertising bidding of Temu and SHEIN has pushed up the click cost of some keywords several times, the increase in Amazon's FBA fees has weakened enterprise profits, and the price war triggered by the full -托管 model has further compressed profit margins... While SANTAI Holdings was deploying on emerging platforms such as TikTok and Temu, its net profit plummeted by 88.38%, indicating the temporary failure of the "stock - based model + full - platform coverage" strategy. Xinghui Co., Ltd. made a goodwill impairment provision of 274 million yuan due to historical issues, exposing the cost of early extensive expansion.
Jihong Co., Ltd. hopes to take a differentiated path: it withdrew from the US market and focused on the "Belt and Road" regions such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East. At the same time, its cross - border social e - commerce business contributed 63.16% of the revenue, and the gross profit margin remained above 60%. By integrating modules such as AI product selection, content generation, and advertising placement through its self - developed Giikin system, it increased the accuracy of explosive product prediction to 82% and reduced the customer acquisition cost by 40%. Jihong's practice shows that the combination of emerging market dividends and technological empowerment can bypass the "involution" competition of traditional platforms, but it needs to bear the risks of limited regional market capacity and imperfect infrastructure.
Obviously, when cross - border e - commerce enters the era of "hard - core competition," the fate of enterprises is more affected by the answers to the following questions:
Can your supply chain freely switch between Mexico, Vietnam, and Malaysia?
Is your technological moat deep enough to withstand the impact of the AI revolution?
Can your brand premium break free from the curse of "Made in China = cheap goods"?
From passive compliance to active risk control, how is your ESG ability in tax compliance, supply chain traceability, etc.?
GreatStar Industrial responded with a global production capacity layout, Jackery set a benchmark with technological depth, and Jihong Co., Ltd.重构ed operational efficiency with AI - these answers may not be perfect, but they point to the same truth: the "wild growth" period of the cross - border e - commerce industry has ended. The 2024 financial reports are like a mirror, reflecting the survival resilience of enterprises and the pain of transformation.
When "regionalization" gives way to "globalization" and "scale priority" shifts to "profit priority," only enterprises that meet the standards in supply chain agility, technology penetration, and channel control can cross the cycle.
This article is from the WeChat public account "Hangzhou Qiantang Enterprise Overseas Expansion Service Base". Author: Miao Yue. It is published with authorization from Qiantang.
