Like many China tech companies, Anker is also following President Xi Jinping’s goal of making the nation a leader in developing artificial intelligence, and it has a lab for developing facial recognition for security purposes.
Tech Gaps
Its expansion has come as Yang seized opportunities created by gaps in the technology industry. In the smartphone business, he targeted the opening between Apple’s expensive chargers and low-quality, white-label replacements.
Anker occupies the space between five-star and three-star Amazon reviews (most Anker products have about four). That is Yang’s sweet spot, where he creates an accessory that isn’t the most expensive but still is of good-enough quality to win consumer trust.
That also means his brands must contend with fierce competition online.
"Selling via Amazon is absolutely still a viable strategy for smaller brands," said Benjamin Cavender, analyst at China Market Research Group. "However, Amazon is increasingly selling its own brand products via its marketplace, which means that smaller companies need to be very aggressive about providing good products and service at attractive price points."
These days Yang is also hoping tensions around a trade war between China and the U.S. don’t escalate. Nearby is the Shenzhen campus of telecommunications giant ZTE Corp., which had to shut major operations after a Trump administration ban on its ability to buy U.S. technology. Trump earlier this month tweeted that he was working on a way to get ZTE back into business.
Shenzhen Hub
One of Anker’s great advantages is that it’s embedded with the supply chain in Shenzhen. The city was a fishing village just four decades ago, until Communist Party Chairman Deng Xiaoping turned it into the country’s first Special Economic Zone as part of China’s economic opening.
It blossomed into the world’s electronics manufacturing hub, with the vast majority of consumer electronics produced there. It’s now evolving again as entrepreneurs like Yang follow big names Tencent Holdings Ltd. to Huawei Technologies Co. in setting up shop.
Yang recruits from a large talent pool in Shenzhen, and he’s hired some fellow ex-Googlers: the former China sales head and two product developers.
Each of the company’s offerings is designed by fiefdom-like teams that sometimes crowdfund their early-stage prototypes. At the Shenzhen office, they’re seen scribbling notes onto transparent conference walls.