Image source @ Visual China
Text | Parity
In 2022, are you still anxious about sharing the charging treasure?
Expensive, difficult to return, poor service. The shared charging treasure track that came out of nowhere in 2017 has been increasingly complained about by consumers in recent years.
From the perspective of the industry pattern, the competition pattern of the entire shared charging treasure industry has a trend of dust settling. According to the "Market Pattern Insight Report on China's Shared Charging Treasure Industry in the First Half of 2021" jointly released by Sullivan and The Head Leopard Research Institute, the top three brands with the most point digits in the first half of 2021 are Zhumang Technology, Monster Charging and Xiaodian Technology.
After the merger of street power and sodian, the three giants composed of Zhumang Technology and Monster Charging and Xiaodian Technology have the potential to become an industry oligarchy.
Of course, this does not mean that brands can go through the flow. Recently, the rumors that Netfamily Small Electric Technology is expected to lay off about 2,000 employees and have not promised compensation have rushed to the hot search. The latest quarterly earnings report of Monster Charging after the listing also handed over a report card of the annual loss for the first time.
Behind the increasing dissatisfaction of consumers, what is the shared charging treasure doing wrong? Faced with the dual pressure of word of mouth and performance, has the shared charging treasure industry reached an inflection point?
We can't afford to share a charging treasure anymore
"When you want to use the shared charging treasure to solve your mobile phone battery life anxiety, you better have the psychological preparation to buy it", Chen Long just suffered a lot in the process of returning the charging treasure last month.
Coincidentally, netizens revealed on the Internet that they borrowed a shared charging treasure for incoming calls before catching the train at Hangzhou Railway Station, but after arriving in Shanghai, they finally paid the price of 199 yuan to buy the charging treasure because it was difficult to find a return point.
After "expensive" has become the general perception of consumers for shared charging treasures, "return difficulty" has become another new slot.
As early as 2017, when the sharing economy was prevalent, the shared charging treasure came out of nowhere, attracting the attention of many markets and consumers.
In 2018, the sweet period of the industry in the 1 yuan era allowed major brands to quickly spread out stations in high-traffic areas such as convenience stores, business districts and stations in the city.
With the passing of the dividend period, price increases have also become the usual routines of brands such as street electricity, sodian, and small electricity that divide the market share. Nowadays, in popular areas such as scenic spots, stations, and bars, the hourly price of shared charging treasures can even reach double digits.
Entering 2022, do we still have mobile phone battery life? With such a question, jioupai visited the streets of Wuhan and explored the price of shared charging treasures of different brands.
Parity tabulation
In railway stations, business circles, convenience stores and other places, a total of 6 brands have been found: street electricity, sodian (now merged into Zhumang Technology), small electricity, caller, monster charging, and Meituan.
There are also certain differences in rental prices and cap amounts for brands in different regions. The maximum amount of incoming calls complained by netizens was as high as 199 yuan in high-frequency areas such as stations. In the Zhou Black Duck merchants near Wuchang Railway Station, the total cap amount displayed by the caller charging treasure is 100 yuan, which is no different from other brands.
From the perspective of rent, the prices of different brands are distributed in the range of 3-6 yuan / hour, and there are subtle differences with the prices of commercial circles and convenience stores (rent, ceiling price difference), which can also be seen from the charging instructions of the Sodian Help Center.
A typical example is that the rental fee of Monster Charging's fast food restaurant in Wuhan Guangbutun is 3 yuan / hour, while the price near Wuchang Railway Station has become 4 yuan / hour, and the 24-hour cap price has also changed from 30 yuan to 28 yuan for the former.
Image source: Search for electricity, monster charging mini program
According to Ai Media Consulting data, in 2021, about 82.8% of consumers sensed the price increase trend of shared charging treasures. Among them, 37.9% of consumers believe that the increase is between 50% and 100%.
Shared charging treasures that are becoming more and more difficult to return
Chen Long, who was surfing the Internet with his friends in the Internet café, borrowed a small electric charging treasure in the Internet café store because the mobile phone was out of power to solve the urgent need. But half an hour later, when Chen Long wanted to return it, he was surprised to find that the slot he had just lent had been occupied by other equipment, and there was no empty space in the entire counter.
Chen Long, who was inconvenient to leave the Internet café at that time, had to start looking for a site to return the charging treasure after a few hours.
Since it was close to eleven o'clock in the evening, the three sites of the site where Chen Long was calling had no vacancies, and it was difficult to find a vacancy in the next business circle that could be returned, but it was once again declared a failure due to the power outage of the mall and the inability of the equipment to be connected.
Many netizens have the same experience, in the railway station it is difficult to find a specific return location according to the guidance of the official mini program of the shared charging treasure, and consumers often encounter this embarrassing situation when using the shared charging treasure.
Because the mobile phone life needs to lend the charging treasure - trapped by the matter at hand for a short time (watching a movie, surfing the Internet, eating) can not be returned immediately - when we have the ability to return it, but because there is no vacancy or operating machine to give up - wait until the next day to find a suitable site to return, this dilemma seems to occur again and again when we borrow the shared charging treasure.
Consumers can't help but ask themselves, "Is it really worth spending a 24-hour cap price of 30 yuan for a single purchase, or spending a 99 yuan buyout price to enjoy the charging treasure permanently?" ”
According to the data of the black cat complaint platform, the complaint records about the shared charging treasure are as high as 11876. Shared charging treasure brand arbitrary deductions, charging standards are not uniform, customer service response is slow have become the problems that consumers complain about.
Image source: Black Cat Complaint Platform
In contrast, as of September 30, 2021, Monster Charging's services covered 820,000 points and the number of online shared charging treasures was 5.8 million; Xiaodian Technology also laid more than 710,000 points at the end of 2020. Zhumang Technology's shared charging treasure online shop points nationwide also exceeded one million last year.
More and more shared charging treasure points have not brought consumers a corresponding better experience. Similar to the dilemma faced by the "predecessors" of the sharing economy, the lack of big data management and limited site opening hours hinder the development of brands.
The shared charging treasure brands that have transformed into technology service companies can obviously use the development of big data to better regulate the point of bursting in real time and balance the asymmetry between supply and demand.
However, from the perspective of brand merchants, solving the user experience problem is only the tip of the iceberg of the current dilemma faced by the shared charging treasure industry.
In 2020, the number of users in the whole industry of shared charging treasure exceeded 400 million, which is a qualitative leap compared with 30 million people 4 years ago. It is no longer realistic to achieve profitability through more user growth.
Among current active users, it is also difficult for brands to achieve profitability at a single point or region. Judging from the results of our visits to the business district, the point utilization rate of the 6 brands is not high. Brands such as street electricity and small electricity even appeared "full" (there was no vacancy on the point) in the golden hour of twelve o'clock in the afternoon.
Parity filming
According to the waiter at the catering store next to the point, in the case of small traffic on weekdays, the number of times the charging treasure on the point is lent out in a day is very small.
According to the data, for the laying investment of the point, the brands that share the charging treasure are basically on the weak side, in addition to paying the increasing admission fee, in some popular restaurants and convenience stores with large traffic, they also need to give the corresponding revenue share to ensure that they can obtain these high-quality merchant resources.
The oligarchs in the shared charging treasure industry have a stable market share, the scale of delivery has expanded, and the user payment is getting higher and higher, but it is getting farther and farther away from making money.
Profit anxiety has begun to plague the head sharing charging treasure brands including "small bamboo beasts" (small electric technology, bamboo animal technology, monster charging).
By selling charging treasures and advertisements, can you continue to live?
In fact, a single profit model has long plagued the "little bamboo beasts" for a long time.
Statistics show that in 2021, the charging treasure service revenue of Monster Charging accounted for 96.3% of the total revenue, and the revenue of the shared charging treasure business accounted for more than 97% of the total revenue in the three years from 2018 to 2020.
In addition to the shared charging treasure service, the revenue of the charging treasure sales and advertising business is minimal. This has also led to a continuous decline in the profitability of head brands.
From the performance changes after the listing of the "first share of shared charging treasure" monster charging, it is enough to see that the brand is suffering from the strange circle of increasing revenue and not increasing profits.
Data source: Monster Charging Financial Report (unit: 100 million yuan)
In 2021, the gross profit margin of Monster Charging sales was as high as 84.46%. The company's annual operating income was 3.585 billion yuan, an increase of 27.6% year-on-year, and the cumulative number of users also reached 287 million.
On the surface, it still has extremely high potential for development. But behind the high revenue, the net loss of 125 million yuan also made the monster charge gradually turn from profit to loss, and the net profit margin on sales fell to -3.48%.
And all this stems from high marketing expenses. In 2021, the marketing expenses of Monster Charging reached 2.951 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 40% year-on-year, accounting for 82.3% of the total revenue.
Coincidentally, the prospectus of Xiaodian Technology shows that the company also stopped the pace of profitability in 2020, with a net loss of more than 100 million yuan.
The latest stock price shows that Monster Charge closed at $0.98 per share, and the stock price plummeted from double digits at the time of listing to less than $1 today.
Major shared charging treasure head brands urgently need to explore an effective second growth curve.
Open the small programs of major brands to find that with the main page pops up, there are a variety of advertising businesses, and some even use red envelopes to attract consumers to click.
Image source: major shared charging treasure brand Mini Program
The latest data shows that in 2021, monster charging's advertising services and other business revenue was 26.7 million yuan, accounting for only 0.7% of the total revenue. The extent to which these advertising businesses, which are completely outside the main business, can play a role is still a question mark.
Of course, combined with consumer complaints, one of the more interesting points that can be found is that the charging treasure sales business may be able to play a greater role in the future.
At present, the buyout cost of the head brand sharing charging treasure on the market is generally around 99 yuan. As a measure of selling price, the brand can have a very high profit margin.
It is worth mentioning that searching for shared charging treasures on idle fish, charging treasures with brand words such as monster charging and small electricity are priced between 10 yuan and 30 yuan. And searching for the same 5,000 mAh charging treasure on Taobao is less than 40 yuan.
Image source: Idle Fish
This means that whenever a consumer "actively" or "forced" to buy a charging treasure, the brand can get up to half the profit from the buyout price.
Of course, this does not change the fact that the high entrance fees and incentive fees for the point laying are high. At the same time, the charging treasure sales and shared charging treasure business itself also have a conflict between one or the other.
In 2017, Cai Guangyuan, CEO of Monster Charging, said that the shared charging treasure industry needs a protracted battle. Now, the dividend period has dissipated, and the protracted battle has entered the second half. The second growth curve that shared charging treasure companies are looking for has not yet emerged.
Write at the end
Increasing rents and relatively less convenient ways of returning them have made a number of shared charging treasure brands suffer from the consumer market. The bottleneck of user growth has also stopped the growth of the shared charging treasure business and turned to the second curve to explore. Judging from the current charging treasure sales and advertising business, it is far from the time to carry the banner. A truly effective second growth curve may not yet emerge.
Of course, from the perspective of business development, diversified revenue channels are the general trend of the shared charging treasure industry in the future. During this period, stopping blind point expansion and improving the user experience have become an urgent problem for brands in the economy of scale stage.
After all, there is a limit to a user's patience with any one product. The development of technology is also constantly promoting industry changes and changes.
How long the subdivision track of the shared charging treasure can survive depends more on the efforts of the "small bamboo beasts", and their "life and death" is entirely in the direction of technological development and the resulting changes in user behavior.
So, do it and cherish it.
Resources:
1. "Loss-making shared charging treasures, began to sell liquor, do short videos" the world wins;
2. "3·15 big survey丨 spend 199 yuan to buy out the charging treasure? Calls with high cap fees have been repeatedly complained about by first finance