At food stalls, hotel lobbies and crowded shopping malls now awaits a device containing a plethora of energy bars with life-restoring power banks.
In the past few years, shared mobile power - for renting out portable cell phone chargers - has become ubiquitous in China's cities. Third-party companies such as restaurants, stores and shopping malls make room for and take revenue (up to 50 percent, according to one Chinese report) from cell phone charger dispensers. China is cell phone crazy and people are always out of power, so this service is popular.
In December 2020, industry leader Energy Monster provided 664,000 mobile power units in 1,500 cities in China. its registered users total 150 million in 2019 and 220 million in 2020, more than twice as many as YouTubers' active users worldwide.
RUIOO POWER BANK CABINET
The industry relies on a network of local partners, such as restaurants, stores and hotels, and their traffic. In other words, the fate of the industry is closely tied to the offline economy, which is itself in a state of constant flux. The epidemic dealt a fatal blow to the company's business, with revenues plummeting to a freezing point. But with signs of recovery in the offline economy and new IPOs in 2021, the charging industry may just have the extra momentum it needs to get through the day. But maybe not this year.
Rental prices for portable chargers may have risen due to market consolidation, but the price of buying a portable charger is plummeting. According to battery experts, the average cost of lithium-ion batteries is expected to drop significantly by mid-decade.
The market price for renting shared mobile power is already much higher than the service previously offered to the public. In some busy urban areas in China, such as the scenic West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province in eastern China, charging up to 10 yuan ($1.53) per hour to rent a rechargeable battery is reported by CCTV.
On Chinese social media Sina Weibo, most netizens disapproved of the rising prices of shared mobile power. Some netizens said they are inclined to buy mobile power for themselves if rents continue to rise. Some even argued that the shared power supply is too slow to recharge. In addition to the high cost, the low recharge speed is also unbearable.
"The increase in rent by shared power companies may be caused by the increase in business costs," Liu Dingding, an independent technology industry analyst, told Global Times on Monday. However, Liu believes the future outlook for the shared mobile power business remains positive, as the product can meet the specific needs of some users on specific occasions.
From free for the first 30 minutes, then 1 yuan/hour to 4 yuan/hour, most Weibo users believe that renting rechargeable batteries has lost the advantage of buying them. One popular comment reads, "The rent is too high. If I have to pay that much to get my phone fully charged, I'd rather buy a mobile power now."
But others said they found shared mobile power irreplaceable in some cases. "When I go to the mall, I really don't want to carry a heavy mobile power with me all the time. You don't understand how great a rented mobile power can be," said one phone user.
The rise in rental prices is an unstoppable thing, but we can improve our service quality. Anyway, for now we can not leave shared power bank station outside, they have so many advantages, you can check our past articles to find them.
Please come to RUIOO,contact us to know more about shared power banks and power bank cabinet for sale.
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