WhereIsAtlas · Consumer electronics

Anker

The Chinese accessories maker that sold straight to Amazon shoppers, then built soundcore into a genuine audio brand — while fighting recalls and congressional scrutiny

Active — Anker Innovations is a Chinese consumer-electronics company founded in September 2011 by Steven Yang. It began with replacement laptop batteries and rose through phone chargers and power banks sold direct to shoppers on Amazon, before building a family of brands: soundcore for audio (2018), eufy for smart home (2016), ROAV for automotive (2016) and Anker SOLIX for energy (2023). It is listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as 300866. In 2025 it recalled about 481,000 power banks after reports of fires, and the chair of a US congressional committee asked the Commerce Department to investigate the company. It remains one of the most successful Chinese consumer brands in Western markets.

Anker Innovations was founded in September 2011 by Steven Yang, in Shenzhen, Guangdong. The company's first business was replacement laptop batteries, and in its founding year it moved into smartphone chargers, wall adapters, portable power banks and conferencing equipment. It was, in other words, a maker of commodity accessories — the least glamorous end of consumer electronics, and the part of the market where Chinese manufacturing had long been strongest.

What made Anker different was not the product but the route to market. Until 2016 its products were sold almost exclusively on Amazon Marketplace and Newegg, bypassing physical retail entirely. That let a Chinese company reach Western shoppers directly, under its own name, without persuading a buyer at a retail chain to stock it. Only later did Anker goods reach big-box shelves at Best Buy, Target and Kohl's.

The company's second move was hiring. In early 2014 Anker brought in Zhao Dongping, then Google's head of sales in China, who became president of the company in 2020. Anker began selling audio products in 2014, and the results were strong enough that in April 2018 it formalised the business as a separate brand: soundcore.

soundcore makes Bluetooth earbuds, over-ear and open-ear headphones, portable speakers and smart glasses. It built its reputation on active-noise-cancelling earbuds — the Liberty Air 2 Pro and then the Liberty 3 Pro in 2021 — a category dominated by Sony, Bose and Apple. That is the significant fact about Anker: not that it sells cheap electronics, but that it moved from unbranded commodity manufacturing into branded products competing at the top of the audio market.

Anker repeated the pattern across other categories. eufy, launched in 2016, covers robot vacuum cleaners, security cameras and smart lighting. ROAV, also 2016, is an automotive brand. Anker SOLIX, launched in 2023, replaced the earlier PowerHouse branding and covers portable power stations, home energy storage and balcony solar systems; its X1 home storage unit won a Red Dot Design Award in 2024. In August 2025 the Nebula projector brand was folded into soundcore to combine audio and visual products under one name.

Not every brand survived. Anker entered 3D printing as AnkerMake, debuting with the M5 model funded through Kickstarter; two machines, the M5 and M5C, reached the market before the company discontinued the printer line in 2025. It then introduced eufyMake, a creation-tools brand built around UV flatbed printers such as the E1 — a pivot from printing objects to printing onto them.

The company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as 300866, in a move that turned a Shenzhen accessories maker into a public Chinese technology company. Its registered Chinese name is 安克创新科技股份有限公司, and it was formerly known as Oceanwing. Its headquarters are now in Changsha, Hunan — not Guangdong, where it was founded — with subsidiaries in Japan, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Growth brought scrutiny of the kind that is now standard for Chinese consumer brands selling into Western markets. Anker has recalled several power-bank models for fire risk since 2023; in June 2025 it voluntarily recalled five PowerCore models over a manufacturing issue involving lithium-ion cells from a single supplier, and by September 2025 the US Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 33 incidents of fire or explosion affecting about 481,000 units.

Anker's eufy brand ran into a separate problem. eufy had said that footage from its cameras was stored locally and was not accessible through the cloud. A security researcher, Paul Moore, found that images and video were in fact being uploaded to eufy servers leased through Amazon Web Services, tagged with user data, and that material remained on those servers after he deleted it and closed his account. The YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips, which had been sponsored by Anker, dropped the company. In December 2022 The Verge reported that eufy had substantially rewritten its published privacy commitments.

In September 2025 the politics arrived. John Moolenaar, chair of the US House Select Committee on China, asked the Department of Commerce to investigate Anker over potential security risks and tariff evasion.

Anker's arc is the clearest example in the registry of a specific corporate transition: a company that started by making other people's commodity products, learned to sell direct to consumers under its own name, and then used the resulting brand equity to enter mature, brand-dominated categories. It is the graduation from seller of unbranded goods to owner of brands — and in audio, it is how a Chinese company ended up competing with JBL and Bose rather than supplying them.

Timeline

Sep 2011 — Founded in Shenzhen: Steven Yang starts Anker making replacement laptop batteries, then moves into phone chargers, wall adapters and power banks. (Shenzhen)
2011-2016 — Sold only online: Anker products are sold almost exclusively on Amazon Marketplace and Newegg, bypassing physical retail.
Early 2014 — A Google executive joins: Anker hires Zhao Dongping, then Google's head of sales in China; he becomes president in 2020.
2014 — Audio begins: Anker starts selling audio products, several years before it gives the business its own name.
2016 — New brands: eufy and ROAV: Smart-home products and an automotive line launch; the PowerHouse energy brand also dates from this period.
25 Apr 2018 — soundcore launches: The audio business becomes a separate brand, making earbuds, headphones and portable speakers.
2020 — Listed in Shenzhen: Anker Innovations begins trading on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as 300866.
2021 — Competing on noise cancelling: The Liberty 3 Pro puts the brand directly against Sony, Bose and Apple in ANC earbuds.
2022 — The eufy privacy problem: A researcher finds eufy camera footage being uploaded to cloud servers, contradicting the brand's local-storage claims.
2023 — Anker SOLIX launches: The energy business is rebranded, covering power stations, home storage and balcony solar.
Jun 2025 — Power-bank recall: Anker voluntarily recalls five PowerCore models over lithium-ion cells from a single supplier.
2025 — AnkerMake is wound down: After the M5 and M5C 3D printers, Anker discontinues the line and shifts to eufyMake UV flatbed printers such as the E1.
Aug 2025 — Nebula folds into soundcore: The projector brand is merged into the audio brand to combine audio and visual products.
Sep 2025 — Recalls and scrutiny: The CPSC reports about 481,000 units affected and 33 fire or explosion incidents; a House committee chair asks Commerce to investigate Anker.

Quick facts

Founded: September 2011, in Shenzhen, Guangdong
Founder: Steven Yang
Headquarters: Changsha, Hunan (moved from Shenzhen)
Former name: Oceanwing
Listed: Shenzhen Stock Exchange, ticker 300866
First product: replacement laptop batteries
Route to market: Amazon Marketplace and Newegg, almost exclusively, until 2016
Key hire: Zhao Dongping, Google's head of sales in China, in early 2014; president from 2020
Audio: began selling audio in 2014; soundcore launched 25 April 2018
Brands: Anker, soundcore, eufy, eufyMake, Anker SOLIX, ROAV, Nebula
Nebula: projector brand folded into soundcore in August 2025
eufyMake: creation tools including UV flatbed printers; succeeded the AnkerMake 3D printing line, which was discontinued in 2025
Recalls: about 481,000 power banks; 33 fire or explosion incidents reported, per the CPSC
Privacy case: eufy cloud-storage claims contradicted by a security researcher
Politics: a US congressional committee asked Commerce to investigate in September 2025

Lineage — where the name went

One accessories maker, six brands. Anker's family tree shows the standard Chinese route from commodity manufacturing to brand ownership — and the point at which a brand gets folded back into another.

2011 — Steven Yang founded Anker Innovations (started with replacement laptop batteries)
2014 — Zhao Dongping served under Anker Innovations (hired from Google, later president)
2016 — Anker Innovations created eufy
2016 — Anker Innovations created ROAV
Anker Innovations created AnkerMake (the 3D printing line)
2025 — eufyMake was succeeded by AnkerMake (the line shifted from printing objects to printing onto them)
2018 — Anker Innovations created soundcore (the audio business becomes its own brand)
2023 — Anker Innovations created Anker SOLIX (replacing the earlier PowerHouse brand)
Anker Innovations created Nebula (the projector brand)
2025 — Nebula merged into soundcore (audio and visual combined under one name)
2025 — The PowerCore recalls defeated Anker Innovations (a single supplier's lithium-ion cells)

Entities in this tree: Anker Innovations (company, 2011); Steven Yang (person); Zhao Dongping (person); soundcore (brand, 2018); eufy (brand, 2016); ROAV (brand, 2016); AnkerMake (brand); eufyMake (brand, 2025); Anker SOLIX (brand, 2023); Nebula (brand, 2025); The PowerCore recalls (event, 2025)

Sources

Anker — Wikipedia (2026-09-19)
Soundcore — Wikipedia (2026-09-19)
Eufy — Wikipedia (2026-09-19)
Anker SOLIX — Wikipedia (2026-09-19)
Anker Innovations Technology (SHE:300866) Financials Overview — StockAnalysis (2026-09-19)

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