ROMOSS's Collapse, Anker's Setback: The Inevitable Bitter Fruit After Intense Competition | Hardcore Krypton Analysis
Author | Zhang Ziyi
Editor | Yuan Silai
From explosions to recalls, the power bank industry has experienced a major upheaval in just half a month, affecting almost all major manufacturers.
As the trigger for this incident, Romoss, once hailed as the "national power bank", is on the verge of collapse.
At around 1 a.m. on July 6th, Romoss officially issued a notice of suspension of production and a holiday. The notice stated that with the continuous changes in the market environment and the development needs of the company's business, after research and decision by the company's shareholders' meeting, the company will suspend production for some time. The suspension period will last for 6 months starting from July 7th, 2025.
Previously, many consumers had reported on social platforms that there were abnormalities in the process of handling power bank recalls and refunds at Romoss' official Taobao flagship store. Some refund applications had been stuck for more than dozens of days, and the money had not arrived yet. The reason was that the balance of Romoss' store account was insufficient.
All signs indicate that Romoss, a leading domestic power bank enterprise that has been established for 13 years and ranked first in the sales of power bank categories on Tmall's Double 11 for 11 consecutive years, has fallen into an operational crisis due to the large-scale recall incident.
Other manufacturers have not escaped the blow either. In addition to Romoss recalling 490,000 power banks, Anker Innovations recalled 713,000 units. "Recently, I can say that personally, including our organization, we are now in a relatively anxious and busy state," said the vice president of Anker Innovations in an interview.
After the new regulations of the Civil Aviation Administration, baskets of power banks were discarded at the security checkpoints. In addition, the 3C certification certificates of power bank products from companies such as Romoss, Anker, Xiaomi, Baseus, and Ugreen have been suspended. Most of the certificate status changes started in early June.
After more than a decade of development, the power bank industry has long become an extremely competitive market. Cheap materials, extreme performance, and a lightweight appearance are actually an "impossible triangle". However, since power banks are not products with high technological added value, people in the industry can only infinitely approach the limits of materials and squeeze out some differences in appearance and charging efficiency.
In this storm, the responsibility cannot be solely attributed to any one party. In fact, this is an inevitable disaster for an extremely involuted industry.
The collective slowdown of the power bank industry is also a warning. It forces the entire 3C industry to think: In an era of large-scale overcapacity, how should enterprises survive without being swept away by the torrent?
01 The Domino Effect Caused by Battery Cells
Power banks are mainly composed of a battery cell part, a circuit board part (boost system and charging management system), and a casing part. As the "energy supply" department, the battery cell is extremely crucial and also the main hardware cost expenditure for power banks, accounting for generally more than 50% of the cost.
This large-scale recall of defective power banks is due to the use of defective battery cells.
Anker Innovations clearly stated in its recall notice that the company found that a certain battery cell supplier had changed the raw materials without approval, which might lead to the failure of the diaphragm insulation of a very small number of products after long-term cyclic use, and then cause safety hazards such as overheating or even combustion.
Multiple media reports said that the battery cell supplier referred to by Anker Innovations is Amprius (Wuxi) Co., Ltd.
So, can the problem be simply attributed to the battery cell material problem of the supplier?
In the power bank industry, Amprius is a first-tier battery cell supplier and the largest supplier of soft-pack batteries in the domestic power bank field.
In 2023, Amprius' cumulative production of lithium batteries exceeded 100 million units, and its main customers include Romoss, Xiaomi, Anker Innovations, Tineco, Baseus, etc.
According to what Anker said in an interview, during the investigation, they found that there should have been some changes in the cathode material. After some twists and turns, Anker confirmed that the materials of this batch of battery cells had been changed multiple times during the process.
Industry insiders told 36Kr that Amprius' battery cell problem this time is suspected to be due to the crystallization of ternary materials during fast charging.
As of now, Amprius has not announced the investigation results of the battery cell incident.
The safe production and testing of battery cells are quite complex issues. Lithium metal itself has very active chemical properties and the problem of dendrite growth, which limits the realization of high energy density.
At the same time, liquid lithium-ion batteries use flammable organic liquid electrolytes. When there is electrical abuse, thermal abuse, and mechanical abuse, the batteries are prone to risks such as thermal runaway, and even fire and explosion. This is a long-standing problem for battery manufacturers in the upstream of the supply chain.
Even a factory of Amprius' scale can hardly trace the specific cause of crystallization. For downstream brand owners, only conducting battery cell safety tests is more about testing the stability of products and cannot trace the source. It also took Anker nearly half a year to identify the material problem this time.
An investor familiar with the lithium battery industry told 36Kr: "In the production process of the lithium battery (including battery cells) industry, there are many links where defects may be introduced, which will lead to a series of subsequent problems. The management requirements for factories are very high. In terms of safe production, there are gradient differences between manufacturers, and the cost of safe production is very high, which will ultimately be reflected in the product price."
36Kr learned that the high-energy-density and high-quality lithium-ion batteries that Amprius can produce do not have an absolute technological threshold, and almost all first-tier large lithium battery factories can achieve this.
However, the downstream customers of leading lithium battery manufacturers are mostly new energy vehicle factories and mobile phone manufacturers. These large customers have high requirements for lithium battery safety and large demand, while power banks are relatively small in scale and may not have the ability and demand to cooperate with leading lithium battery manufacturers.
After the cooperation with Amprius went wrong, Anker Innovations announced a strategic cooperation with Amperex Technology Limited (ATL). ATL is an absolute leader in the global battery cell industry. ATL has the largest market share in the mobile phone lithium battery field, exceeding 40% in 2021, and its customers include Apple, OPPO, Huawei, etc.
"The cooperation threshold with large factories like ATL is very high. Some may require a minimum order quantity of 500,000 units, a 6-month production and delivery period, and cash settlement. These are requirements that small power bank factories cannot meet," an industry insider told 36Kr.
It should be noted that, for now, it cannot be proved that Amprius is a bad factory. The suppliers of automotive-grade batteries are of course impeccable in terms of ability. However, according to the analysis of industry insiders to 36Kr, "Amprius' battery cells have brand premium in the industry and are already very expensive battery cells."
As a first-tier large factory, the large-scale product quality problems of Amprius are actually an inevitable backlash after the crazy pursuit of performance.
02 Excessive Competition
The 3C accessories (including power bank enterprises) industry is an industry that earns hard money.
Different from consumer electronics products such as mobile phones and AR glasses that can be used independently, the accessory attribute of accessories meets the additional needs of consumers, and its prosperity is deeply affected by upstream products.
As the replacement cycle of global smartphones has been extended from 16 - 18 months to 36 months, the purchase frequency of 3C accessories has also gradually decreased.
In the power bank market, according to data from Mordor Intelligence, the market size of power banks is expected to be $1.359 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach $2.035 billion by 2029, with a compound annual growth rate of 8.40% during the forecast period.
Obviously, the growth rate of the power bank market has slowed down, which has shifted the competition in the mobile energy industry from a single capacity competition to a comprehensive competition in fast charging, appearance, and price.
However, without the support of core and hard technologies, external advantages are fleeting.
Take Anker as an example. Its gallium nitride charging plug launched in 2018 was well - received by the market. Within a month, another best - selling brand, Aukey, launched the same product.
Price has become the most intense battlefield. Take Romoss as an example. The daily price of its "20000mAh 22.5W fast - charging power bank" was in the range of 129 - 149 yuan in 2021, but by the end of 2024, the price had dropped to 69 yuan.
In this non - stop race, companies are running faster than the iteration speed of batteries themselves, and the instability of lithium batteries has become a hidden danger.
"The current industry is too involuted. When high performance, fast fast - charging, small, light, and thin designs, and the performance of materials in all aspects are pushed to the limit, problems will inevitably occur," an industry insider in the power bank industry told 36Kr.
This kind of story doesn't only happen in the power bank industry. According to data from Shangqi Industry Research Institute, there were as many as 480,000 enterprises related to mobile phone accessories in China in 2024, and most of the products were minor innovations and easy to imitate.
The ways for enterprises to avoid getting involved in ineffective competition are actually the same old remedies: attach importance to R & D and explore more technology - intensive markets. For example, the R & D expense ratios of Anker and Ugreen in 2024 were 8.5% and 4.9% respectively, and they showed an increasing trend. In seemingly highly homogeneous product categories, the two still achieved brand premium through technological innovation. Anker is also expanding into more hardcore product categories such as 3D printing and lawn mowers.
China's manufacturing capacity for 3C products is irreplaceable in the world. However, after performance is in excess, enterprises must find a smarter way to digest production capacity. Otherwise, the fate of price wars is a vicious cycle of repeated industry collapses.
Image source on the homepage | Corporate official website
Typesetting | Liu Siya
This article is from the WeChat official account "36Kr". Author: Zhang Ziyi. It is published with authorization.
