Written by Zhang Yu.
Edited by Yang Yong.
Baseus, a new life digital brand, has once again completed a round of financing.
On December 11, Baseus announced the completion of hundreds of millions of yuan in A+ round of financing, which was led by Shenzhen Capital and followed by Gaorong Capital and Yuexiu Industry, which will be mainly used for product R&D investment, brand promotion, and channel construction at home and abroad.
It is worth noting that Baseus has completed two rounds of financing this year, and on April 20, Baseus received hundreds of millions of yuan in Series A financing invested by Shenzhen Venture Capital, CICC Capital, Yuexiu Industry**, and Gaorong Capital.
At first, Baseus started with smart phone accessories, and then gradually expanded to more than 20 categories and more than 3,000 SKUs, mainly including charging, mobile power, intelligent audio, intelligent cleaning, energy storage power supply, vehicle peripherals and life and office, among them, charging is Baseus's dominant category, and its charging products have long occupied the first place in the digital electronic charging category on Tmall, Jingdong, Douyin and other platforms.
Up to now, Baseus has set up offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia and other countries, accounting for about 40% of overseas sales, and has more than 300 million users, covering more than 100 countries and regions around the world.
Although favored by investment institutions, Baseus is still facing many difficulties, such as the slowdown in the growth rate of the consumer electronics accessories industry and the serious homogenization, as well as the construction of a new growth engine, Baseus has not made outstanding achievements for the time being, and its future is still full of difficulties and obstacles.
Betting on overseas markets comes with many challenges
The overseas market has become an extremely important market for Baseus, and the sales of overseas markets have exceeded 40% of the total sales, and the construction of overseas market channels has also been listed as a key project in the use of A+ round of financing.
On the whole, Baseus has made remarkable achievements on overseas e-commerce platforms and independent stations, such as on Amazon, Baseus's many products have performed very well, with monthly sales of more than 10,000 single products. In addition, Baseus ranks first in the sales volume of AliExpress and Lazada's 3C accessories categoryThousands of orders are sold every day on platforms such as Sheopee.
In June 2023, Baseus launched a Bluetooth noise-canceling headset, and in just half a year, the product not only got the Amazon Choice logo, but also achieved significant sales results in multiple Amazon sub-category BS lists.
Source: Baseus official website.
In terms of independent stations, Baseus's traffic is also steadily rising. According to data from SimilarWeb, from September to November 2023, the average monthly number of visits to its independent website has reached 66670,000, and in November it grew rapidly to 710,000.
Offline channels are also a key focus of Baseus. As of 2022, Baseus has more than 600 stores in more than 180 countries and regions around the world, and also has more than 100*** At the same time, Baseus also sells its products in some large electronics retailers and supermarkets, such as Best Buy, Walmart, etc. in the United States.
However, betting on overseas markets also poses many challenges for Baseus.
On the one hand, it is not easy to run an independent station. Hugo's cross-border research data shows that the biggest problem faced by independent station sellers in their operation is off-site drainage. As the natural traffic is apportioned and the paid traffic becomes more and more expensive, independent station sellers are often faced with the dilemma that new products cannot be pushed and old products cannot be sold.
On the other hand, over-reliance on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon has made Baseus's ability to resist risks worse and worse, and once there is any fluctuation in the e-commerce platform, Baseus's profitability will also be affected. It is foreseeable that the business model of highly dependent on the e-commerce platform may lead to a large number of costs due to the platform's increase in "monopoly fees", which will bring great risks to it.
Although it is not easy for Baseus to lay out overseas market channels, it is still an extremely important move, which will determine the performance trend of Baseus in the next few years.
The growth rate of the accessories industry has slowed down
The consumer electronics accessories industry mainly provides supporting and accessories services for consumer electronics such as smart phones and computers, and cannot exist independently, but in the past few years, the overall situation of the consumer electronics accessories industry is not optimistic.
Anker Innovations' performance is typical. On August 24, 2020, Anker Innovations won 66The issue price of 32 yuan shares landed on the GEM, and as of the first day of listing, the share price of A shares** was higher than the issue price**12141% to 14686 yuan shares, corresponding to a total market value of 5968.8 billion yuan. As of December 29, the share price of Anker Innovations was only 886 yuan shares, down 39 from the first day of listing7%, corresponding to a total market capitalization of 3600.9 billion yuan, and the market value of more than 23 billion yuan disappeared.
In fact, with the influx of more and more manufacturers into the consumer electronics accessories track, the consumer electronics accessories market has become a red sea competition, whether it is Pinsheng, green and other brands have been branded, or all kinds of small and medium-sized businesses on major e-commerce platforms, in the data line, power bank, charger, mobile phone case, mobile phone film and other accessories products, most of the participants have not gotten rid of the situation of exchanging volume at low prices.
At the same time, smartphone shipments are still tumbling. In the third quarter of 2023, China's smartphone market shipped about 67.05 million units, down 6% year-on-year, while the global smartphone market size fell 0.03%。At the same time as the demand for smartphones is declining, PC shipments are also declining, and the "Worldwide Personal Computing Device Tracker Quarterly Report" released by IDC shows that in the third quarter of 2023, the global PC market shipped a total of 68.5 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 72%。China's PC market shipped 11 million units, down 16% year-over-year, with desktop shipments down 9% year-on-year to 3.4 million units, while notebook shipments fell 18% year-on-year to 7.8 million units.
The consumer electronics industry is cold, resulting in the consumer electronics accessories industry is also unable to escape the trend of slowing demand, which is undoubtedly a huge concern for Baseus.
After the completion of the A round of financing, Baseus has said that the goal for the next three years is to achieve a revenue of more than 5.2 billion yuan in 2023, with an absolute high market share in the core category in China, and the charging category ranking first in ChinaIn 2024, the revenue will exceed 7 billion yuan, and it will become the No. 1 charging brand in the world and become a retail platform companyWith a revenue of more than 8.8 billion yuan in 2025, it will become the world's leading consumer electronics brand.
However, at present, it is not easy for Beisi to achieve the goal, which means that Baseus needs to have strong product research and development capabilities, industrial design capabilities, production organization capabilities, solution service capabilities, etc., otherwise it is easy to fall into the quagmire of homogeneous competition.
Portable energy storage is not the new curve
In August 2022, Baseus held an autumn new product launch conference, in addition to core products such as charging and TWS Bluetooth headsets, it also released portable energy storage products to increase the portable energy storage business.
Source: Baseus official website.
As more and more consumers take picnics and outdoor camping as their preferred outdoor leisure activities, it will further promote the sales growth of portable energy storage products. According to the "Research Report on the Development of China's Portable Energy Storage Industry" released by the China Chemical and Physical Power Industry Association, the global shipment of portable energy storage devices will reach 483 in 202180,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 1317%；Shipments are expected to reach 31.1 million units in 2026. In 2021, the penetration rate of portable energy storage in the outdoor market was only 23%, and the penetration rate is expected to increase to 15 by 20269%。
The portable energy storage industry is not only growing rapidly, but also has a huge imagination. Compared with European and American countries, the development of China's outdoor market is still in its infancy, and China is currently about 1300 million people participate in outdoor sports, accounting for 9% of the total population5%, which is a significant difference from the 51% participation rate in the United States.
However, it is worth mentioning that portable energy storage may not be able to become Baseus's new growth curve.
On the one hand, Baseus had to face the encirclement and interception of many competitors, such as Desay Battery, Topband, Anker Innovation, Huabao New Energy, and Camel Co., Ltd. have launched portable energy storage products, in addition, Huawei has launched an outdoor power supply product mobile "small power station", CATL has released a "pastoral era" emergency power supply, and Xiaomi has also released Mijia outdoor power supply 1000Pro and solar panels and other products. According to incomplete statistics, there are currently more than 30 mainstream outdoor power supply manufacturers, and hundreds of portable energy storage products have been launched.
On the other hand, there are problems such as low technical barriers and serious homogeneous competition in the portable energy storage industry, for Baseus, the barriers lie in the channel accumulation and brand influence, but in the face of industry competition, Baseus is difficult to rely on barriers to improve net profit margins, but it is also forced to be involved in the first war, with the further increase in the number of entrants, its profit margins are bound to be squeezed.
In general, Baseus's portable energy storage business may be difficult to open up, taking Huabao New Energy, the "first share of portable energy storage", as an example, in the first three quarters of 2023, its total revenue will be 158 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2916%；The net loss was 6202030,000 yuan, from profit to loss.
It can be seen that while the growth rate of the consumer electronics accessories industry is slowing down, how to stabilize the fundamentals, strengthen the ability to resist risks as soon as possible, and complete the construction of market channels at home and abroad has become a difficult problem that Baseus has to face.