Text丨Wang Haoran Editor丨Shi Lei
Where is the next 10 years of Romas, a 3C brand enterprise?
"We did a lot of discussion and research, and the end result was surprisingly simple – do what we're good at and do it to the best of our ability." At the brand renewal conference held not long ago, Guo Qian, CEO of Romax New Retail, clearly pointed out the direction of Romas: focus on charging and continue to take root in this track for ten years.
Ebang Power saw at the press conference: there are all kinds of charging products placed on the site, from small and exquisite pocket power banks, to light and easy-to-carry batteries, to heavy outdoor energy storage products, and there is even a hot new energy vehicle on the scene, next to the Roma charging gun. In the past, Romas, which was considered a "power bank brand", has now developed ten major product lines, covering mobile power supplies, chargers, car chargers, energy storage power supplies, charging cables, charging guns, charging sockets and other fields, becoming the "invisible champion" of the charging track.
"Charging is not just an industry, its scope and scale are staggering." Based on the annual shipments of mainstream brands of equipment that need to be charged around the world, including mobile phones, tablets, computers, watches, bracelets, headphones, VR, smart hardware, etc., the number of global charging terminals is about 15.6 billion units, with a market size of about 300 billion. "With such a vast market, there is no reason why we should not grasp it."
Therefore, at this press conference, Roma announced three major policies:
· Vigorously expand overseas markets, and in 5 years, overseas business revenue should account for 50% of total revenue;
· Take user experience as the first goal, and sort out the existing product system;
· The brand visual system has been re-upgraded, and a new upgrade has been made in the brand tonal proposition, brand color, brand logo, etc., so that Romax has become a more youthful and recognized brand by the new young people.
This is the new direction of Romax. A domestic brand that is good at building sales champions in subcategories has begun to put going overseas in a strategic position.
Since entering the global market in 2015, Romax products have been exported to more than 80 countries and regions, serving more than 100 million users, with annual global shipments of more than 50 million pieces; Since last year, Romax has completed the strategic transformation from product to brand. Guo Qian told Ebang Power that at present, Romax has built an overseas special office in Shenzhen, and all the personnel recruitment channels and housekeeping processes have been rebuilt, and overseas local teams are also being built one after another, all for one goal - to build another Roma overseas.
Behind the "rebuilding a Romas", what is the global strategy and layout of Romas? This issue of Ebang Power's "Super Insight" will take Romax as a model to deeply analyze its global strategy and explore how it can recreate brilliance in overseas markets.
01
The road to the king of segmentation in the Red Sea market
The Rise and Strategy of Romas
As a typical example of a golden age, the rise of Romans is staggering.
From 0 to the sales champion of the whole network, it took only eight months, and in the following years, Roma handed over an answer sheet that amazed the market: it has been the sales champion of Tmall Double 11 mobile power supply category for ten consecutive years; In 2015, the sales in Viet Nam, Japan, India, U.A.E., Iran and other places ranked first; In 2018, it won the first place in sales in South Africa; In 2023, it will win the first place in the annual mobile power category sales of TikTok Shop in the Philippines, and in the early years, three of the top five stores in the TikTok Shop mobile power category belonged to Romax.
It can be said that the ten years of Romax are the ten years of the industry - starting from a single category and completing the "thrilling leap" from a manufacturing enterprise to a leading brand in the consumer electronics market.
However, it is undeniable that the entire charging industry has turned into a highly competitive red ocean over the past decade. Generally speaking, there are no more than two types of choices: one is to expand the category, relying on technical compound interest, so that there is no end to their battlefield; The second is to continue to tap demand in subdivided categories and become a "towering tree" in the industry. The representative of the former is Anker; The choice of Romax is to cover every scene in the field of charging.
Guo Qian, CEO of Roma New Retail
But in Guo Qian's view, there are still considerable opportunities to explore this market, "It's completely a red sea, but we don't really see it that way." There will still be some real market opportunities that will arise. ”
Taking the domestic market as an example, shared charging treasure has ushered in a wave of market highlights, meeting the needs of some scenes that urgently need electricity, and therefore occupying the core position of large and small supermarkets, bookstores and other scenarios. And such a scene demand, to give the traditional power bank a new market opportunity - Roma Shi has launched a power bank product with only 2000 mAh capacity, exclusively for convenience stores, the price is only 19.9 yuan, compared with the average cost of a single charging in 1-3 yuan / hour of shared power bank, the extremely high cost performance is obviously more able to capture consumers.
In addition, when the mainstream power bank capacity in the market is 10,000 mAh-20,000 mAh, Roma took the lead in launching a 30,000 mAh power bank product. In Romas's view, the main user group of this product is college students or some high school students - in the collective accommodation environment, the general school will choose to cut off the power at night, and the value of a large-capacity power bank is self-evident. Guo Qian said, "The increment of this market segment can even be hundreds of millions. ”
"That's why we say that the whole market looks like a red ocean, but there is still a considerable need that has not yet been met." If you look at the world, more complex demand scenarios mean endless market opportunities. Guo Qian believes that whether it is in terms of segmentation demand or market coverage, until now, there has not been a truly dominant brand in the world, "such as Anker, its strong market is in United States and Japan; Romax's strong markets are in Southeast Asia such as the Philippines and Africa. It is everyone's understanding of the product and local users. ”
Zhou Jun, CPO of Romas, believes that the current competition in the global market has changed from a competition for single-dimensional advantages, such as cost performance and technical advantages, to a wrestling of comprehensive product attributes. "Our core strengths are divided into three dimensions: design, technology, and process automation, and we build the core competitiveness of the product side from these three perspectives."
In terms of investment, many brands that started in the charging field have mostly expanded their product lines from charging to audio and video, intelligence and other fields, which means that R&D investment will inevitably be dispersed, and the team will also expand sharply; And Roma is still focusing on charging, covering all charging products from a small power bank, focusing on the field of charging, and the competitiveness of a single field will continue to be amplified, "We estimate that the entire market capacity is about 300 billion, and it is still a market that has not been fully eaten." Romax insists on deepening and broadening in the field of charging, which is where our advantage lies. ”
The market has proven the choice of Romax. In South Africa, Roma has won the first place in South Africa's online market sales for five consecutive years; In the Philippines, Roma has become the No. 1 sales volume in the 3C digital accessories category of important promotion nodes such as 9.9, Double 11 and Double 12 for three consecutive years.
02
Innovative charging technology to cover all scenarios of demand
Romans uses hard power to break through the Red Sea market
Intel has a well-known Tick-Tock strategy, that is, the architecture and process development alternately, one generation of processors upgrade the process (Tick), the next generation of processors upgrade the architecture (Tock), and so on, every year to be able to launch new products to maintain their competitive advantage.
The same innovation logic is reused by Romax in the field of charging - process and technology alternate iteration, process innovation, will bring breakthroughs in automation, surface technology, design process and other aspects; Technological breakthroughs will lead to efficiency improvements, temperature reductions, and system changes.
Roma Shi CPO Zhou Jun
Take the "Mini Energy Bar" series of Romax as an example: a small power bank of about 5000 mAh, with a delicate and compact appearance, lipstick-sized products can be easily stored, with dopamine gradient color, and a delicate matte matte texture. Zhou Jun introduced to Ebang Power, "The inkjet painting process of gradient color of ordinary products is sprayed directly on the surface of the product, no matter how good-looking it is, it will face the problem of fading in the long run; The unique process developed by Romax sprays the gradient color on the inside of the product, so that the color of the product can be preserved for a long time, and a layer of transparent material is added to the outermost layer, and under the refraction of light, the three-dimensional sense of the product will be stronger. ”
Romax "Mini Energy Bar" series
At the technical level, Romax has specially developed a series of "small ice cream" products for overseas markets, and introduced the first-line three-charging technology pioneered by Romax on the 10,000 mAh power bank, which is perfectly adapted to the charging needs of different devices such as Android and Apple, and can even charge Apple Watch, AirPods and other watches and headphone products.
Behind the continuous change of technology and technology is the insight of Romax into the needs of global user markets.
Ebang Power learned that in order to adapt to the demand scenarios of different markets, Romax contacted a number of overseas institutions, and deployed overseas product managers in multiple markets to fine-tune the details and develop new products.
For example, in China, the demand for charging is more about portable and fast charging; In Southeast Asia, some regions are facing serious power shortages, and the demand for large capacity is extremely urgent. Rubio, the largest agent of Roma in the Philippines, told Ebang Power that many users in the Philippines will even buy 40,000 mAh and 60,000 mAh products, and these two models have contributed considerable performance to Roma around 2021 and 2022. In addition, in terms of color, Southeast Asia will like products with high saturation, and Romax will also launch some products with more vivid and bright colors in Southeast Asia.
In North America, Apple users account for the vast majority, for this market, Romax has launched a variety of magnetic charging products to solve the charging needs of mobile phones, watches, headphones and other products for the whole family, "small ice cream" series is the product of this demand.
At present, the best-selling product of Romax is a 10,000 mAh power bank called "Little Pudding", which balances volume, practicality and grip. Generally speaking, the palm of an adult is about 14 cm -19 cm, when holding the object, the best circumference of the product is about 15.7 cm, and the design circumference of the product is 15.8 cm, which is in line with the best grip of the vast majority of people;
"We will use a large number of voices from consumers on the platform to find some unmet consumer pain points. And in addition to the functionality of the product, we have added more lifestyle-based expressions, not only to change more devices, but also to enjoy your life. Yao Nan, CMO of Romas, said, "So when consumers talk about Romas, they will naturally think that this is a scientific and technological brand that represents a new way of charging." ”
Romax's 10 product lines cover mobile power supplies, chargers, car chargers, energy storage power supplies, charging cables, charging guns, charging sockets and other fields
Based on the development of different charging demand scenarios, Romax has developed 10 product lines, "each product line is an industry worth more than 100 billion yuan".
It's not built out of thin air. After a perspective of all the terminal devices that need to be charged in the world, Romax has obtained a phased data: there are about 15.6 billion active devices that need to be charged in the world, so as to provide full-scene charging solutions. After satisfying the product line, Romax classifies the user's power demand according to different usage scenarios, and divides it into four levels: mild, moderate, heavy and professional, and constructs the current coverage range of Romax products: the capacity is from 2000 mAh to 20 kWh, and the electric power is from 5 watts to 5000 watts.
In 2024, Romos took another important step with the establishment of the Romoss Future Lab. The research direction of the laboratory is extensive, covering charging technology innovation, application research of cutting-edge technologies such as AI, upgrading of product functional scenarios, and construction of product ecology. In terms of technology research and development, the laboratory has three pillars of technology:
The first is the "first-line three-charging technology", which can support fast charging of iOS, Android devices and power banks through a single Lightning to Type-C cable, which greatly simplifies the user's charging equipment.
The second is the "bidirectional reversible charging technology", which is an L+C head data cable with adjustable and pluggable interface, which is compatible with iOS and Android devices, which greatly improves the user experience.
Finally, there is the "Powerplus technology", which realizes that a stand-alone energy storage power supply can be connected to the expansion battery pack in parallel, and the capacity and power can be freely superimposed to meet the power demand in different scenarios.
The establishment of the Romoss Future Lab and the successful development of these three pillars of technology mark a solid step forward in the field of charging technology, bringing users a more convenient, efficient and intelligent charging experience.
Jim · Collins says in his book From Good to Great: "The flywheel effect tells us that achieving excellence is not achieved overnight, but requires a constant push of the heavy and difficult flywheel, round and round, until it has gathered enough momentum to start running on its own." "By pushing the flywheel of technology, products and brands, Roma has gradually built up enough momentum to become a global leader in charging, even in the highly competitive Red Sea market.
03
From the product to the brand to the back
Transform from a single product to an all-encompassing brand
"There are categories but no brands" is the crux of the industry that the charging industry has been facing for a long time. On the one hand, the homogeneous competition between industries is fierce; On the consumer side, a dominant brand mentality has not yet been formed, and many people even believe that there is not much difference between charging heads.
In the past ten years, many charging companies, including Romas, have chosen to go overseas as products, which are sold overseas in the form of agents and distributors.
Since last year, Romax has made a new brand upgrade.
Romas's new brand color "Ice Sea Blue"
In terms of brand tonality, Roma has put forward three major brand tonality propositions: quality, friendliness and modernity, placing products in high-quality life scenes; Launched a new brand color "Ice Sea Blue", which is more in line with the preferences of young users, and also represents glaciers and oceans, containing the brand environmental protection concept of carbon neutrality and sustainable development of Romas; The official font is refreshed, the Chinese font adopts the "OPPOSans" font, and the English font adopts the "Outfit" font, which is more technological and modern.
Everything points to a new core user group: 500 million new young people around the world. "This group of people has two characteristics, one is very pragmatic, will pay for the function of the product rationally, such as power, capacity, cost performance, shop around; Will pay for good design and aesthetics, and is willing to pay a higher product premium. Yao Nan said.
Rubio also told Ebang Power that in the Philippines, the per capita minimum wage is about 2,000 yuan, while the local customer unit price of Roma is about 100 yuan, which is not cheap, but the user group will pay for it, "they will think, I buy Romas, I will buy a good charging brand."
Yao Nan, CMO of Romas
In order to break through this group, one of the core strategies adopted by Roma this year is to invest heavily in TikTok. In Yao Nan's view, TikTok has a very high DAU in Southeast Asia, especially with a large number of young users, which is just in line with the 500 million new young people targeted by Romas. At present, Romax has built a systematic content team in Nanshan, Shenzhen, and will have a global content production center in the future to continuously output the content and materials required by the short video platform.
Yao Nan believes that TikTok, as a platform in a period of rapid development, has just started commercialization in many countries, with low traffic costs and influencers and content-based; At the same time, Romax has run out of the methodology on Douyin e-commerce, which can be partially reused on TikTok, which allows Romax to win a higher input-output ratio (ROI).
Taking the Philippines as an example, Roma Shi has joined a large number of TikTok Filipino head influencers and KOCs, through unboxing videos, good things sharing, scene experiments and other forms, after planting grass in a large area on the platform, and then using Dabo to harvest, and finally doing more delivery, doing conversion in the storecast live broadcast room, and simultaneously guiding to the shelf e-commerce transaction inside and outside the station. According to reports, Romax will also build a live broadcast base in Jiangmen, Guangdong, and build various live broadcast rooms in different categories.
In the past, Romax has built enough user minds on platforms such as TikTok, Lazada, and Shopee in the Philippines. After opening up the brand's voice online, this year, Romax will go one step further, gradually moving from online to offline, launching products suitable for offline channels, online and offline linkage, and taking the lead in the next stage in the Philippines. Guo Qian told Ebang Power that Roma will build a core team overseas, with at least four people in each country, covering business, product, marketing, and delivery functions.
"One of the core points of our global market expansion is to have a global vision, but also to be local enough. When it comes to making content in China, it's hard to match the needs and product preferences of local consumers. We're sure to build our own teams in each country, so we can also produce high-quality content that local users will love. Yao Nan said.
Guo Qian said that in terms of electricity demand alone, there is little difference in the demand for products at home and abroad, and more differences lie in the use habits and use scenarios. "In terms of product quality, we are all held to the highest standards, so there is not much difference in the production process, it is more from a supply chain perspective." He pointed out that Romax is building an entire overseas warehouse system to support the whole cross-border link. In addition, the price and packaging need to be re-planned according to different markets; In view of the problems of cross-border links, return and exchange, Romax has also developed a tracking code system, which can directly identify the shipping channels of products and solve the problem from the root.
In 2024, under the brand upgrading strategy, based on the replicability and scalability of the market, Romax has delineated 30 key national markets to launch an impact on higher goals.
The next decade of Romax will be a journey towards becoming a global leader in the field of charging. In this process, Romax will focus on the ultimate pursuit of charging technology and the in-depth excavation of brand value, break through the red sea market with hard power, and win the trust and love of global users with soft power.
As Guo Qian said to Ebang Power, "In the future, we will vigorously expand overseas markets, and it is expected that in five years, overseas business will account for 50% of the total revenue, and achieve brand recognition and market share first in many markets around the world." ”