Creating the Best Answers from People's Voices—A Closer Look at Anker, Which Thoroughly Reflects User Voices in Product Creation

This is a project to interview about the roots of "value brands" that handle a large number of home appliances with sufficient performance at reasonable prices, thoughts on product development, and approach methods. This time, while introducing Anker's hit products, we will approach the history of the company's growth and the philosophy of manufacturing!

Company name: Anchor Japan

Founded: 2013

Head office: Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo

The first hit home appliance: Anker Astro M3

Founded in 2011 by Steven Yang, a former Google engineer. Established a Japanese subsidiary in 2013. Initially known for its smartphone peripherals, it is now involved in audio products and IoT home appliances, and continues to grow under the slogan "Empowering Smarter Lives."

Small projector with Android TV that can be used alone

Anker

Nebula Capsule II

Actual selling price 59,800 yen

Projector with Android TV 9.0 and built-in battery. You can project images at 720p HD resolution & up to 100 inches. It can be used alone or in conjunction with a smartphone, and it also has an HDMI input so you can connect a game console.

SPEC ●Projection resolution: 1280 x 720 dots ●Brightness: 200 ANSI lumens ●Video playback time: Approx. 3 hours (Approx. 2.5 hours when using Wi-Fi) ●Size/Weight: Approx.

The feature of the Nebula series is that it is equipped with Android TV in a small body with high image quality and sound quality, and it blends seamlessly into your life. This was made possible by the developers who originally worked on smartphones. Utilizing the knowledge gained through smartphone development, we aimed to eliminate the weaknesses of conventional projectors, such as the size that makes it difficult to carry around and the sound quality that is unsatisfactory.

[I asked this person]

Corporate Communications Manager, Marketing Division, Anchor Japan

Chikako Takiguchi

Joined in 2017 after working for a PR company and LCC public relations. He supports the rapid growth of the Anker group from the communication field.

Founded with the aim of achieving both high cost performance and strong support

Anker Group founder Steven Yang worked at Google as a senior search engine engineer. One day, when he was looking to buy a replacement battery for his laptop, he found that he had only two options: genuine, reliable but expensive, and generic, cheaper but lesser quality and support. I had my doubts. "Why isn't there a product that combines affordable prices with excellent functionality, quality, and support?" In 2013, two years after its founding, the Japanese subsidiary Anchor Japan was established. The trigger of success in Japan was still the mobile battery, which is still synonymous with the company today.

"There was a product called Anker Astro M3 that was consistently ranked number one in Amazon's mobile battery category. It was highly rated for its large capacity of 13000mAh and its affordable price of around 3000 yen. At that time, some people had a vague negative image due to the low price of Chinese manufacturers.Therefore, Anchor Japan read not only Amazon reviews, but also personal blogs and media review articles to find out what customers were looking for. After that, we put in place a support system to foster trust, and made steady efforts to improve our products based on customer feedback. As a result, people gradually began to recognize that ``Although Anchor Japan is a Chinese manufacturer, they have solid support and can feel at ease.'' (Mr. Takiguchi)

[Anker Astro M3]

In this way, the company will continue to develop steadily. The way the company manufactures its products shows how important the Japanese market is to them.

"The Anker Group's products are basically global, but the Japanese market tends to require compactness even for large-capacity mobile batteries compared to the United States.Anker PowerCore released in 2016 The 10000 is the first product developed to "win" in the Japanese market by explaining the uniqueness of the Japanese market to the development team at the head office.This product was born in a housing smaller than a credit card and has a large capacity of 10000mAh. and achieved a record of more than 2,500 units sold on the first day of its release.To date, it has become a best-selling model that boasts a cumulative sales record of over 1 million units.” (Mr. Takiguchi)

[Anker PowerCore 10000]

Even as our business diversifies, our customer-oriented approach remains the same

The Anker Group initially focused on charging-related products, but later expanded its business to products that are highly linked to smartphones, such as audio products, robot vacuum cleaners, and smart projectors. The company's common practice in all fields is "manufacturing with a software concept."

"We are thorough in speedy product development and improvement based on customer feedback. We receive more than 700 inquiries per day by phone and email. If you add Amazon reviews, even in Japan alone. We receive hundreds of thousands of voices every year.We analyze these opinions and requests more precisely and quickly than any other manufacturer, use them for product improvement and development, and bring products to market in the shortest possible time. The Anker Group cherishes this.At our company, not only the customer support department, but also the development and quality control departments and the marketing and sales departments check customer feedback, and the number of ★ in Amazon reviews is used as a common product evaluation. Since our founding, we have consistently maintained the stance of 'creating the best answer based on people's opinions.'" (Mr. Takiguchi)

[Eufy RoboVac G10 Hybrid]

The company, which has used user feedback to improve products since the days when sales were mainly on EC sites, has been focusing on the development of real stores in recent years. The purpose of this is to collect and utilize information that is difficult to obtain through existing sales channels, such as customer reactions and trends at stores. Furthermore, we are accelerating the diversification of touch points with customers, such as participating in the rental service “kikito” developed by DoCoMo.