NUPIAO
July 2 was supposed to be a victory lap for Anker Innovations (00668.HK), the company behind the “power bank king” crown. Instead, its Hong Kong main board debut—completing an A+H dual listing—quickly turned into a bruising reality check. The stock opened at a price that instantly shattered the HK$99.32 issue price, and by the midday break, it was trading at HK$94.05, down 5.31%, for a market cap of about HK$54.82 billion.
Anker’s Hong Kong offering price was already about 26% cheaper than its A-share closing price. The global offering covered 46.6328 million H shares, with a 9:1 split—90% earmarked for institutional investors and only 10% for Hong Kong’s retail public offering. There’s also a 15% greenshoe option designed to stabilize the stock.
The company raised net proceeds of roughly HK$4.523 billion, earmarked for global channel expansion, supply chain upgrades, hardware R&D, and brand building. On the demand side, the Hong Kong public offering was a scorching 27.57 times oversubscribed, with a 30% allocation rate for one lot, showing plenty of retail enthusiasm. But the international placement told a different story, drawing only 10.24 times subscription. That lukewarm institutional appetite set the stage for the weak first-day performance.
It’s worth noting that Anker’s Hong Kong debut came with a blue-ribbon syndicate: joint sponsors were CICC, Goldman Sachs Asia, and J.P. Morgan, while 11 heavyweight cornerstone investors—including Schroders, Jinglin, Hillhouse, and UBS Asset Management Singapore—committed a combined US$295 million, covering 49.9% of the global offering. All cornerstone shares are locked up for six months, which in theory should tighten the tradable float and ease short-term selling pressure.
Known for its asset-light model, Anker focuses on three core categories: charging and energy storage, smart home, and smart audio. Its three main brands—Anker, eufy, and Soundcore—span mainstream overseas markets.
From 2023 to 2025, Anker’s revenue climbed consistently: RMB 17.507 billion, RMB 24.71 billion, and RMB 30.514 billion, a three-year compound growth rate of 32%. In 2025, net profit attributable to the parent company hit RMB 2.545 billion, up 20.37% year on year, with both top and bottom lines reaching record highs and a gross margin holding firm at 45.07%.
By category, charging and energy storage remains the bread and butter, generating RMB 15.402 billion in 2025, or 50.5% of total revenue. Smart home and smart audio contributed 27.1% and 22.4%, respectively. That multi-category balance does help cushion the risk of relying too heavily on a single segment.
But behind the shiny revenue figures, there are some nagging operational risks. In 2025, net cash flow from operating activities plunged to just RMB 481 million, a staggering 82.5% drop from RMB 2.745 billion in 2024, while inventory ballooned to RMB 4.997 billion, tying up significant working capital. Combined with long-term rigid spending, the company’s high gross margin hasn’t reliably translated into stable cash flow, and net margins have been hovering around a meager 8% for years, keeping profit conversion efficiency under constant pressure.
On top of that, a massive global power bank recall last year amplified the strain. Anker pulled back a total of 2.38 million charging products, and its warranty provision shot up 84% year on year, directly eating into profits. Overseas compliance and quality control risks remain a persistent worry for the capital markets.
Anker’s first-quarter 2026 report, released at the end of April, showed revenue of RMB 7.608 billion, up 26.93% year on year, but net profit attributable to shareholders fell 4.87% to RMB 472 million.
The revenue growth engine is still largely fueled by overseas markets: overseas revenue came in at RMB 7.25 billion, a 26.35% increase, accounting for 95.30% of total revenue. The profit dip was mainly due to a roughly RMB 100 million fair value book loss on equity investments. Excluding that non-recurring item, adjusted net profit hit RMB 547 million, a solid 24.39% year-on-year jump.
By channel, online revenue in the first quarter reached RMB 5.142 billion, up 25.17%, while offline revenue grew 30.79% to RMB 2.465 billion. The brand’s independent websites alone generated RMB 814 million, a 46.73% surge, signaling a deliberate effort to cut reliance on third-party platforms like Amazon. In 2025, Amazon still accounted for more than half of Anker’s total revenue, a single-platform concentration risk that institutions keep flagging.
First-quarter operating cash flow was a negative RMB 451 million, down over 56% year on year. The cash drain came from a triple whammy: advance inventory stocking for the peak season, prepaid advertising on overseas platforms, and after-sales expenses tied to the recall. This continues the severe cash flow squeeze that marked 2025.
Inventory kept climbing, too: by the end of the first quarter, the book value of inventory had risen to RMB 5.569 billion, up from RMB 4.997 billion at the end of 2025, stretching inventory turnover days to 92 and tying up even more working capital.
At a shareholder meeting on May 12, attendees told NUPIAO that Anker executives addressed product quality concerns by admitting that the charging category had simply too many product models. In 2024 alone, the company had 100 power bank models.
“There should never be 100 models, no matter how you look at it,” Anker’s management said. “No company can realistically maintain quality across 100 different power bank models.” Over the past 18 months, the company has already slashed the number of charging product models by roughly 70%, and it plans to cut another 50% to 70% over the next 18 months.
In a recent interview, Anker’s founder and CEO Yang Meng said that power banks won’t become a hundred-billion-level category; in fact, they might disappear in a few years. He drew parallels with MP3 players and cassette recorders, whose life cycles lasted only about a decade.
For this overseas champion that built its name on power banks, the road ahead hinges on continuing to streamline its product lineup, improving its cash cycle, and finding a convincing second growth curve.
