From being popular to laying off employees, will the trend of shared charging finally stop?
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"Unlike shared bikes, which have solved the problem of 'last mile travel', there is not such a huge demand for shared charging," said one commentator. "Plus, with so many companies suddenly competing with each other, the market is bound to become saturated, and the next step is either mergers or bankruptcy." In the past six months, shared charging has entered the fast lane. However, now, some companies have begun to fall from the altar. According to a previous report by Phoenix Technology, the shared charging company Hi Electric is comprehensively shrinking its offline promotion team, and about 200 employees are facing layoffs. Even more surprising is Hi Electric's way of layoffs: employees are transferred from their original working cities to frontier cities in frontier provinces, and are required to report to their new positions at their own expense within 24 hours. If they are unable to report to work within three days, they will be regarded as "automatically resigning." Today, Hi Electric, which is less than half a year away from its last round of financing, is caught in a vortex of rumors such as violent layoffs and wage arrears. However, Hi Electric's founder Liu Wenyuan denied the rumors in an interview, saying "how can there be employees who have not received money?" and then said that he had repeatedly stated that he would no longer respond to this issue. "Shared charging cannot be called a hotspot, but a point where the capital market takes the lead in the competition for linkage entrances in the post-O2O era." Wang Gaoxiang, manager of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Department of CCID Consulting Co., Ltd., told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, "When high-frequency, high-yield, and high-stickiness entrances are snatched, the second-ranked entrances, such as shared power banks, shared hotels, and other shared products, begin to attract the attention of capital, and then begin to receive resource injections that exceed the industry's own capacity limit, and eventually the blue ocean turns into a red ocean and then into a dead sea." Payback in one month? In the first half of 2017, shared charging became one of the areas that capital was vying for. In April 2017, shared charging companies received financing intensively. In just half a month, several companies including Hi Electric, Jie, Xiaodian, and Lai have received investment, with a financing amount of nearly 300 million yuan. Even just 10 days after announcing that it had obtained tens of millions of yuan in angel round financing at the end of March, Xiaodian announced that it had obtained pre-A round financing again. According to statistics from iiMedia Research, from March 31 to April 28, there were 10 financings in the shared power bank market, with dozens of institutions participating, including well-known investment companies such as IDG, Red Dot China, and Yuanjing Capital, as well as well-known investors such as Wang Gang. Among them, Hi Electric announced in April this year that it had completed an angel round of financing of tens of millions of yuan, led by Zhizhuo Capital, followed by Feitongfanxiang Venture Capital and four individual investors. At present, shared power bank products can be mainly divided into physical power banks and power bank rental cabinets. The former is a machine-side connection for charging, and the power bank cannot be taken away. It is mainly distributed in small scenes in the form of desktop charging. Currently, it is represented by Xiaodian and Hidian. The latter is a fixed rental cabinet, which contains portable physical power banks. According to the capacity of the rental cabinet, it is distributed in areas with high traffic such as railway stations and scenic spots or small scenes such as restaurants and bars, represented by Laidian and Jiedian. Liu Wenyuan previously revealed in an interview that the cost of desktop power banks is mostly less than 100 yuan, and under ideal circumstances, it can be recovered in one month. However, an anonymous commentator told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that "providing charging equipment for free and charging mobile phones has always been one of the added value and services of shopping malls or merchants. Now charging has to be paid, not to mention that the electricity bill is not paid by the shared charging company." In his view, such a business model has no sharing spirit and is a "regressive, backward and barbaric business model." However, regarding the Hi Electric layoffs, Wang Gaoxiang said that this is not an industry problem for shared charging. "Hi Electric's capital chain problem is a problem that will occur in any rapidly developing industry for companies with poor management or decision-making capabilities. This incident has little relevance to the shared charging industry, and the entire industry cannot be denied because of one or two things about this company." According to data from iiMedia Research, China's mobile power market reached 23.6 billion yuan in 2016, an increase of 7.3% over 2015, and is expected to reach 27.6 billion yuan in 2017. However, iiMedia Research analysts believe that due to the slowdown in sales growth of mobile devices such as smartphone terminals, mobile power, as one of the terminal accessories, is also facing the dilemma of weak growth. In 2017, the trend of China's sharing economy instantly shifted to shared power banks, and many companies competed to layout, and the growth of mobile power output may accelerate again. However, as the current market has reservations about the profit model of shared power banks, the industry's sustainable development capabilities still need to be verified by the market. In fact, during the interview with the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, many interviewees expressed a cautious attitude towards the shared charging model. "Unlike shared bicycles that have solved the problem of 'last mile travel', shared charging does not have such a large demand," said a commentator, "plus the sudden integration of so many companies competing with each other, the market will inevitably become saturated, and the next step will be either mergers or bankruptcy." It is worth noting that shared charging is only one of the dazzling "sharing economy" this year. When shared BMWs, shared umbrellas, shared stools and other "sharing economies" emerge in an endless stream, many users joke that the "sharing economy" has been ruined. In this regard, Wang Gaoxiang emphasized that the sharing economy itself has not been ruined, but the abused word "sharing" has been ruined. "The reason behind this phenomenon is that there are fewer and fewer O2O entrances, and capital is increasingly blindly pursuing concepts while ignoring its sharing nature." Wang Gaoxiang pointed out, "In my opinion, the sharing economy model that is beneficial to capital and society should return to the essence of sharing. Only by truly establishing a cycle from 'Inside' to 'Outside' and opening up the connection can we truly achieve the dual benefits of the entrance economy and the service economy." As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity. |
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