Shakeout is coming for China’s power bank sharing sector, Laidian CEO

The sharing economy is not dying, it’s just transforming, said Ren Mu, chief marketing officer at smartphone power bank sharing company Laidian Technology.

“The apparent death of the sharing economy is actually the death of the term as a concept—not the business model,” Ren explained. “As the tech ecosystem becomes impatient, and treats the sharing economy as just a novel and innovative noun, real implementations are beginning to penetrate our lives.”

“This is about the maturity of the industry, not the death of it,” Ren added.

“2019 will be a turning point, and that many power bank sharing startups will have to prepare for a situation as same as that of bike sharing at the moment,” Ren said. “Mergers and acquisitions, these are what I see for the coming year.”

Regarding market capacity, only the top five players in the industry will have a chance to survive, said Ren. RMB 500 million (around $72 million) is a crucial revenue threshold that the current five market leaders need to defend their positions.

Apart from charging device rent, industry players can consider entering other business areas such as those, for example, that require mobile users as traffic generator.

Ren said that many up and comers in the battery sharing industry are hoping to build user profile bases as assets by encouraging scan-and-rent services with automatic payment solutions.

“We are not just about power bank hardware,” said Ren, referring to Laidian.