"Dumping" War Of Sharing Power Bank: Admission Fees Of Millions Of Merchants Draw Nearly 70% Of Profits

The rapid outbreak of demographic dividend has led to the strange situation that "the wool comes from pigs, and the dog pays the bill" in the sharing economy.

"The phenomenon that offline businesses are forced to do so is becoming more and more serious. Before 2019, it was almost 50% of the total profit, but now it is 37% of the total. A store should take away 70% of its profits. Especially after the U.S. League entered the game, it adopted the strategy of ultra-low or even no split. Merchants blindly pursue high income, when the platform is inseparable, they can only allow them to increase prices. " On May 20, an insider of the shared powerbank company disclosed the current pressure to the 21st century economic reporter.

This dilemma has long been fed back to the consumer side. A direct feeling is that in the shopping malls, temporary shops and restaurants near Xintiandi in Shanghai, the main shared power brands are street power, monster charging, small power and meituan. The hourly rental fee is mostly 3 yuan and 4 yuan, and the high price is even 6 yuan.

Even so, the profits of the platform are also in short supply. According to the unaudited performance report for the first quarter up to March 31, 2021, released on May 19, the revenue of monster charging in the first quarter was 846.9 million yuan, an increase of 162.5% year-on-year; Among them, the revenue contributed by shared charging business was 816.8 million yuan, up 164.5% year-on-year. After adjustment, the net profit was 23.2 million yuan, and the operating profit margin was only 2.8%. On the other hand, small power technology will change from profit to loss in 2020, with a net loss of 104 million yuan.

In the view of industry insiders, under the background of merchants taking advantage of themselves and the continuous dumping of the industry at the B end, the competition will become worse, and the interests and use costs of consumers will also be affected.

The dispute of "point and position"

In the scuffle of sharing power bank, offline scene becomes the most core resource.

According to the financial report of monster charging, as of March 31, 2021, monster charging has 716000 sites and 5.6 million online shared power stations in more than 1600 regions in China. In the first quarter of 2021, monster charging has 16.4 million new registered users, with a total of 235.8 million registered users.

It is worth noting that in the first quarter, monster charging and Alibaba local life service company reached a strategic cooperation. The two sides linked payment, e-commerce, local life and other business sectors, and successively carried out cooperation in channel operation, merchant service, member system and other dimensions.

In addition, monster charging has also reached exclusive cooperation with famous brands such as Beijing Zhangjiakou high speed railway, Hengdian film group, Songcheng group, Weilai automobile, etc., which further penetrates the scenes of large passenger flow and strong demand such as catering, entertainment and transportation hub“ We will continue to expand our business in China's first tier, second tier and lower tier cities to promote scale growth and efficiency improvement. " Cai Guangyuan, chairman and CEO of monster charging, said.

Then, as of December 31, 2020, the shared power bank service of small power technology has more than 710000 sites, and has launched 6 million power banks, covering more than 1700 counties and cities in China. At the same time, it also causes profits to be swallowed up. According to the company's prospectus, one of the reasons for the big change in performance in 2020 is the negative impact of the new crown epidemic on the growth of small power technology revenue, and the other is the rapid scale expansion.

The company's distribution and marketing expenditure in 2020 will reach 1.472 billion yuan, an increase of 40% over the same period last year. From 2019 to 2020, the entrance fee of small power technology will increase from 141 million yuan to 302 million yuan, up 114.5% year on year, and the sharing cost will increase from 574 million yuan to 710 million yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 23.7%.

"In some of the core scenarios, the entrance fee is also starting from the seat, and the fees like bars and nightclubs are higher." A BD staff member of a shared power bank enterprise told the 21st century economic reporter that before the epidemic, a shared power bank enterprise signed an agreement with Wanda cinema line. At that time, the entrance fee was as high as one million yuan per month. As a result, it fell into a huge loss.

In order to occupy the market share, the platform does not hesitate to give merchants a high share. Under the radical tuyere, rationality has been difficult to be alone. When this rule is not enough to maintain the survival of enterprises, price increases become inevitable.

Business expansion

No matter whether the air outlet created by capital is blue ocean or black hole, the war is far from over after monster charging and small power technology have successively rushed into the capital market.

According to iResearch's Research Report on the shared power bank industry in 2020, the revenue of shared charging enterprises in 2019 is mainly divided into rental income, advertising income and other income, and the proportion of rental income is very large. In 2019 and 2020, the rental income of monster charging accounts for 95.15% and 96.55% of the total revenue respectively. Revenue source is single, that can only rely on the expansion point and price rise to achieve profit.

Starting from April 2020, meituan reviews has begun to lay out and share power banks nationwide. It will provide free power bank machines to businesses as an entry point. Moreover, it will increase the recommendation authority for those who have access to it, so as to help them obtain more online traffic and improve the store entry rate. However, this statement was denied by the US delegation officials.

A restaurant business in Beijing told the 21st century economic report that meituan's revenue from the power bank is 50% and the monthly net profit is about 100 yuan. In addition, charging prices can be set by themselves, ranging from 2-4 yuan“ Generally, the less the flow of people in the store, the more expensive the price will be. "

Under the pressure of meituan, the profit margin of the shared power bank industry also began to decline. The incentive fee of monster charging is also maintained at a high range. From 2018 to 2019, the incentive rate of monster charging is 48.2% and 58.1% respectively. In order to break through the bottleneck of the industry, the major platforms began to focus on other businesses to find the second growth curve.

Cai Guangyuan, founder of monster charging company, said that "Kaihuan liquor" was the first attempt of its new business“ The liquor market is a trillion yuan market, and its gross profit rate is relatively high, and single liquor can be made into explosive products, and a product can be made into a hero product. "

Unlike monster charging to open up a second battlefield, small power technology has chosen a local life closer to itself. Earlier, an insider of the company told 21st century economic reporter that small power technology was gradually incubating short video local life operation services. Through the strategic cooperation with top short video companies and the traffic brought by the short video platform, we provide short video and live streaming marketing solutions for point partners and other businesses. On the one hand, it can deepen the point to point partnership by providing a wider range of services. On the other hand, it can help short video companies to expand their coverage in the third tier and lower tier cities and smaller businesses. Small power will extract sales revenue from the process of providing marketing solutions and marketing tools for merchants to order, and can also strive for more bargaining conditions for merchants.

For the sharing of power, the industry is far from the ceiling, in the uncertain future, listed financing has become an inevitable choice. The future market trend is still unknown.

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