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China’s power bank sharing industry took a hit from Covid-19, but it’s not out of juice yet

  • China’s booming shared power bank industry had 150 million users in 2019, according to market research firm Trustdata
  • It took a hit due to the Covid-19 pandemic earlier this year, but analysts say it is already starting to bounce back

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China’s booming shared power bank industry had 150 million users in 2019, according to market research firm Trustdata. Photo: Shutterstock
Iris Deng

Renting power banks at restaurants or stores used to be part of Timothy Chen’s routine whenever he was out and found his iPhone running out of juice.

“I don’t want to carry a portable charger in my pocket every time I go out, especially when I can find a shared one almost everywhere and it costs only a few yuan each time,” the Shenzhen resident said.

However, Chen’s appetite for it is has waned since the coronavirus pandemic: “I’m not too concerned about the hygiene problem when I used a shared power bank [but] I simply don’t go out as much after the pandemic,” he said.

China’s booming shared power bank industry had 150 million users in 2019, according to market research firm Trustdata. Like other segments of the country’s sharing economy, which encompasses everything from home-sharing to bike-rentals, the industry took a hit during a months-long lockdown earlier this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic – but analysts say it is already starting to bounce back.

“The pandemic had a major impact on Laidian and the whole shared power bank industry,” said Liu Ying, general manager of branding and marketing at power bank sharing company Laidian, which has 180 million registered users and 2 million daily active users as of July. “Revenue dropped to a freezing point at the most difficult time during the lockdown.”

However, analysts told the Post that they are expecting a speedy recovery for the portable charger rental industry as normal life and business in China have been resuming since March, even though cinemas did not reopen until late last month and the global travel industry is still suffering from lockdowns across the world.
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