"I use its electricity, and it sucks my blood."
Author: Sui Kun Fu Yumei
Recently, Monster Charge , the leader in the shared power bank market, released its third quarter financial report this year. If I could sum it up in one sentence, it would be "throw away losses and continue".
Public data shows that Monster Charge suffered a net loss of 377 million yuan in the first three quarters of this year. Compared with the loss of 56 million yuan in the same period last year, increased its loss by more than 300 million yuan compared with in the same period last year.
As the founder of Monster Charge, Cai Guangyuan seems to have lost the high spirits he had at the beginning of . He had previously admitted: "The company has been challenged both in terms of operations and financial performance."
In 2017, Cai Guangyuan, who was in a foreign company, suddenly entered the shared power bank market to start a business, and got on the busiest "sharing track." In an interview, he was confident: "To be honest, starting a business is a narrow escape, but we are very lucky. We have made many right decisions and choices along the way, and have so many noble people to help us."
Today, Cai Guangyuan's noble people seem to be far away from him, and the price increase of shared power banks has caused him to face overwhelming complaints from users.
The strangest thing is that although the price of Monster Shared Power Bank has been rising, their loss momentum has continued.
Unpleasant charging experience creates giant
When being interviewed, Cai Guangyuan still occasionally mixed English words in his Chinese. For example, when he wants to say "transformed from an individual to a leader", he will say: "You were an individual contributor and later became a team leader." When he wants to say "I was just an assistant," he will say: "When I was an assistant."
He has never had any experience studying abroad. Graduating from a foreign language university and having experience in foreign companies have made him develop this speaking habit.
Looking back on his experience, he always "combines Chinese and Western".
In 2001, Cai Guangyuan, who was born in the 1980s, successfully passed the Shanghai International Studies University , majoring in information management systems. After graduation, he entered the foreign company Unilever and worked there for 7 years before becoming a global brand. Brand development manager; later he worked for two Chinese companies - Xtep and New Element FMCG brand, responsible for marketing work; in 2016, he returned to work in a foreign company and became the general manager of Uber Shanghai and the marketing director of Uber China.
The time came to 2017. At that time, he was already a middle-level manager of a successful foreign company, but an unpleasant mobile phone charging experience became a turning point in his life.
At the beginning of that year, Cai Guangyuan finished handling official business near Jing'an Temple in Shanghai. When he took out his mobile phone and prepared to take a taxi home, his mobile phone ran out of battery. To this end, he found several merchants and begged them to help with charging, but was rejected by them all. Finally, a counter clerk in the department store agreed to his request. There, Cai Guangyuan charged 5% of the battery before returning home as he wished.
This experience led to the birth of Monster Charge.
·Cai Guangyuan.
At that time, shared charging brands such as small electric and street electric had already entered the market. However, Cai Guangyuan found that the scenarios in which these products were deployed could not meet people's needs for shared power banks.
data shows that Dianping included tens of millions of merchants at that time, but the penetration rate of and in the shared charging industry for these potential customers was only less than 10%, and the penetration rate in retail, entertainment and public facilities was even lower.
In 2017, Monster Charge was born in Shanghai. That year, the sharing economy and were in full swing, capital was entering the market explosively, and the sharing economy was booming. Sharing basketballs, sharing umbrellas, and sharing ponytails... At that time, many entrepreneurs had the dream of a "sharing economy."
Cai Guangyuan also has a "sharing dream". His many years of experience working in FMCG brands allowed him to quickly build an “entrepreneurial dream team”.
He once introduced the team to investors with great pride: "Our COO Xu Peifeng is the veteran of Meituan and was the general manager of Meituan Crowdsourcing; CMO Zhang Yaoyu is my former colleague of Uber; CTO Li Xiaowei is Qiantu Niuyan General manager Fa; the head of finance is from Alibaba ; the head of supply chain is from Huawei . The background of this team is big enough that many investors believe in Cai Guangyuan and Monster Charge.
At that time, Cai Guangyuan was gearing up and high-spirited. He believed he had found the right path, a path to success that would revolutionize people's lifestyles to some extent.
was involved in a lawsuit before going public
On July 27, 2017, Monster Charge, which was founded just a few years ago, announced that it had received hundreds of millions of yuan in Series A financing. Since then, Monster Charge's financing speed has been like a rocket. Xiaomi , Goldman Sachs , Hillhouse Capital and other star investors are on the participating list.
Under the leadership of Cai Guangyuan, Monster Charge has focused its products on scenarios with "large flow of people, long operating hours, and long crowd stay".
Within a few years, Cai Guangyuan invested monster charging in hotels, transportation hubs, hospitals, scenic spots, and comprehensive playgrounds all over the country.
While constantly exploring the market, Cai Guangyuan also knows how to shape his image. Starting from the end of 2018, Monster Charge started from pan-entertainment, not only cooperating with celebrities and big IPs, but also jointly marketing with well-known brands.
In those years, Monster Charge has cooperated with stars such as Lu Han , Liu Haoran , and well-known IPs such as One Piece, Marvel Avengers, and Gundam.
·Monster Charge and Liu Haoran’s linkage advertisement.
Scale effect and network effect enable Monster Charging’s business to achieve a virtuous cycle. In 2019, 2020, and 2021, Monster Charging’s operating income has steadily increased.
Around 2020, Monster Charge became the leader in the shared power bank market. In 2021, Cai Guangyuan led Monster Charging to a new level - listing.
However, just before the listing, Cai Guangyuan received a summons from the court.
In March 2021, an investor named Feng Yiyi publicly posted that he had sued Cai Guangyuan, founder and CEO of Monster Charge, in China and the United States, demanding that the other party fulfill its previous promise of "3% shares of Monster Charge."
According to Feng Mingming’s self-report, he was the “leader” of Cai Guangyuan’s creation of Monster Charge.
In February 2017, Feng Yiyi and several other investors proposed starting a business in the field of shared power bank. They bring investment and ideas to recruit entrepreneurial executive teams. At that time, Cai Guangyuan happened to have the idea of starting a business in this field, and the two parties hit it off.
According to Feng Yingming, with his help, Cai Guangyuan built a project team and improved the business model. Later, Feng personally took the latter to Shenzhen to inspect suppliers.
Feng Yiming later disclosed part of the WeChat chat records, which showed that shortly after the establishment of Monster Charge, Cai Guangyuan proposed that he and Feng Yiming and others had different work philosophies. In the end, the two parties negotiated and broke up peacefully. Just before Feng Yiming and others withdrew, Cai Guangyuan proposed to "give Feng Yiming and others 3% of the shares" in return for "the kindness of knowing someone".
Later, the value of these 3% shares soared from hundreds of thousands of yuan that year to tens of millions of yuan on the eve of Monster Charge's listing. Cai Guangyuan has never responded publicly to this.
This matter caused quite a stir at the time, but Cai Guangyuan’s handling of the 3% stake is still a mystery.
Amid the buzz, in April 2021, Monster Charge was successfully listed in the United States and became the "first shared power bank stock."
Surprisingly, since Monster Charge was launched, their lives have become increasingly difficult.
In more than a year after its listing, Monster Charge 's stock price was in a break state most of the time.
Around 2021, Monster Shared Power Bank increased its price, but subsequently fell into a vicious cycle of increasing losses as the price increased.
Monster Charge’s 2021 Q2 financial report shows that revenue in the second quarter of 2021 was 972 million yuan, an increase of 52.90% from 636 million yuan in the same period last year, but net profit was 8.21 million yuan, a 73% decrease from 29.93 million yuan in the same period last year.
Since then, monster charging losses have occurred frequently.
Can’t the price increase save the loss?
Cai Guangyuan’s loss report has once again brought the entire shared power bank industry into the spotlight.
In recent years, not only Monster Charge, but also the prices of shared power banks of various brands on the market have generally increased.
Public data shows that from 2017 to 2020, the hourly rental price of shared power banks has increased from 0.5 yuan to 4 yuan, a full 8 times. In some popular scenic spots, bars and other places, there are even high prices of 10 yuan per hour. In order to reduce the "sense of being stung" by users, various brands have also switched the rental billing standard to a half-hour unit price.
"I use its power, and it sucks my blood." This is a joke made by talk show actor House on the show about the expensive price of shared power banks, and it is also the real experience of many consumers. Netizens also gave the shared power bank a title: Wallet Assassin.
So here comes the question: Why do companies still make less money when the prices of products increase frequently?
According to Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, the early shared power bank industry is completely different from today. Cai Guangyuan and others rose up during the "highlight period" of an industry.
"The shared power bank model originated around 2017. At that time, the sharing economy was in full swing, and the development of 4G and 5G was also changing with each passing day. With the rapid development of the smartphone industry, more and more shared power bank companies have emerged, targeting mobile phones. It was difficult to charge the mobile phone when it was out of the house. Over the next year or so, the leading companies in the sharing of power banks began to suffer losses. Monster Charge, which was the first to go on the market, also faced the dilemma of continuous losses. "
Price increases are also a last resort. Jiang Han said that in the early days of the development of shared power banks, major companies had abundant venture capital, and a large amount of VC and PE funds came in, which could support companies to seize the market at extremely low prices or even for free. "Later, as the investment trend declined, various companies had no choice but to start adopting charging models, and the prices charged also increased."
"These companies have increased product prices, but their losses are increasing, and their services have been criticized. The current situation seems very embarrassing." Jiang Han also said that pricing is not the only factor affecting the revenue of shared power bank companies.
He said that the income source of shared power banks is single. "The core revenue source of shared power banks is pure offline passenger flow, which is a very single source. When some places that attract users see a significant decline in passenger flow, it will directly affect the revenue of shared power banks."
In addition, the cost of shared power banks is still rising. Due to the increasingly fierce competition, places with large passenger flow have become the focus of competition for enterprises, and behind this is the high point fee. "The cost of shared power banks continues to increase, which will continue to squeeze the profit margins of enterprises."
"Currently, the shared power bank market shows a trend of concentration of leading companies. In 2021, Monster Charge will be launched, street electricity search and electricity will be merged, and small electricity companies are also sprinting for IPOs. A pattern of "three electricity and one beast" has been formed. However, under the epidemic, the pressure on the channel side of shared power bank, which focuses on offline scenarios, has become increasingly fierce. "
To regain market confidence, Cai Guangyuan urgently needs a breakthrough to find new growth points.
The main business could not be carried out, so he tried to find another way. On April 1, 2021, he launched his new product to the public-"Kaihuan" liquor.Taking advantage of Monster's billions of user base, he made it clear that he wanted to use liquor as the first attempt at the second growth curve.
The result was not as he expected. A year and a half later, there was only "big thunder but little rain". The number of users of a brand store called Kaihuan is only 24,000. Among the six products, only one has sales of 200+, while the rest have sales in double digits or even single digits. With such data, it is naturally difficult to create a splash in the liquor market.
After a lot of twists and turns, Cai Guangyuan failed to tell a new story, but instead made the monster charge a little more stressful.
Now, Cai Guangyuan has to face the test head-on. How to break the monster charging game? Where is the future of shared power banks? Jiang Han said that nowadays, the number of smart terminals is increasing, but battery technology has not achieved breakthrough development, and shared power bank itself has not lost its market focus.
"In addition to looking forward to the subsequent recovery of offline passenger flow, shared power banks still need to work hard on technology research and development, how to combine it with mobile phone fast charging, how to change the billing method in a single time dimension, etc." Jiang Han believes that shared power banks are not without opportunities, but depend on the choice of enterprises. "If you don't do it well, you will face being eliminated by the market."
Director Producer: Lu Hong
Supervisor: Zhang Jiankui
Chief Editor: Xu Chenjing
Editor: Ling Yun
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