When going global encounters a "red ocean", how can one break the deadlock through differentiation?

At the beginning of 2025, the General Administration of Customs released a set of data. In 2024, the total value of imports and exports reached 43.85 trillion yuan, hitting a record high. Among them, the export volume exceeded 25 trillion yuan for the first time, reaching 25.45 trillion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 7.1%, and maintaining growth for eight consecutive years.

Going global has become an inevitable strategic choice for Chinese enterprises.

However, whether it is the uncertainty of the global economy, geopolitical fluctuations, the complexity of the international market, or the rapid changes in consumer preferences and the intensifying competition, enterprises are facing numerous challenges in the process of going global.

With strong winds and high waves, the market has begun to diverge. According to the "Blue Book of the Cross - border E - commerce Industry in 2024", in 2024, 47% of cross - border merchants experienced varying degrees of decline in their revenue levels, almost doubling the 25% in 2023. A survey by Hugo Cross - border showed that nearly half of the merchants' profits in 2024 were lower than the same period in 2023, among which 13% of the merchants' profits declined by more than 50%.

"Competing fiercely both at home and abroad" is becoming a trend. How to find certain growth in uncertainty? This is the core question that every enterprise going global has to think about.

Sharge Technology, a Shenzhen - based enterprise founded in 2020, has shown us in five years how a "non - consensus" company can find a way out in a red - ocean market.

The company's first power supply product took two years to top the list in the $200 price range on the Amazon US site. In 2024, the company's revenue exceeded 200 million yuan, with overseas business accounting for 60% of the total revenue. On Chinese New Year's Eve in 2025, its AI glasses brand launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Kickstarter platform, attracting more than 8,000 supporters. The crowdfunding amount exceeded one million US dollars in three days and finally reached over two million US dollars, ranking among the top in the AI glasses category...

Sharge Technology can obviously be regarded as a "typical" case in the topic of "how to find a new channel in the'red - ocean' market". To find the commonalities of industry development from this individual case, we had a chat with Zhang Bo, the founder and CEO of Sharge Technology.

Clarify "How to Go"

"Five years ago, not many Chinese enterprises were going global, but large enterprises had been doing so for a long time," Zhang Bo pointed out. His first job was at Gree, and the situation of going global was very different from now. Only large - scale enterprises could support local distributors, meet profit requirements and distribution network layout, and thus had the opportunity to go global.

"The new - generation going global is essentially an efficient traffic distribution and a sound sales system." When the online marketing and sales system became well - developed, many small and medium - sized enterprises also began to try to go global at a low cost. "There will definitely be some chaos, and it's easy to be backfired by platform traffic. If it's just product - oriented going global, relying on domestic productivity, it will soon fall into the path of 'involution'," Zhang Bo said. Products must have sufficient expressiveness and innovation so that they can attract the attention of overseas consumers through publicity.

After researching some enterprises at the forefront of going global, global management consulting firm McKinsey also released a report: In addition to focusing on cost and scale, enhancing innovation ability is an indispensable part for enterprises to go global.

Innovation ability has also become the secret for Sharge Technology to develop into a company with a revenue of over 200 million yuan in just five years. This was also the development path of "how to go" that the company clarified at the beginning of its establishment.

Back in 2019, Zhang Bo and a group of friends who left DJI and Gree started a business. They targeted high - end users with higher requirements for quality, performance, and design in the power bank market, leveraging gallium nitride, a new material that was transitioning from military to civilian use. This choice enabled Sharge Technology to quickly gain market recognition in the crowded power bank market. The first gallium nitride power bank product raised nearly one million US dollars on Kickstarter.

"A truly good product must be recognized as good by people all over the world, just like the iPhone," Zhang Bo said. Based on high - quality products, clarifying the accurate logic of the traffic funnel and continuously promoting and amplifying it are the keys to long - term and healthy growth in the process of going global.

Looking at Sharge Technology's product portfolio today, unique design, excellent performance, reliable quality, and greater efficiency and portability have all become its important innovation points. For example, power banks with transparent casings that allow clear views of internal components such as PCB boards, chips, and batteries; those equipped with multi - functional displays that show real - time information such as remaining power, input/output voltage, current, power, and battery temperature; products that are lighter than ordinary shared power banks while maintaining the same capacity and efficiency...

Differentiated innovation has enabled Sharge Technology to find a new channel to meet unmet user needs in the "red - ocean" market where many well - known brands and products had already integrated into consumers' daily lives in 2020, successfully breaking through the competition. Its products have won the love and trust of millions of users in dozens of countries around the world. This is also reflected in its performance. In 2024, in addition to the revenue exceeding 200 million yuan, its overseas revenue accounted for 60%.

Define "Where to Go"

Sharge Technology is better known not for its energy storage products. The mid - to high - end route is destined to have popularity in a small circle. Its first AI glasses product, launched at the end of December 2024 with a price of 999 yuan, was sold out immediately after its release.

Compared with similar domestic products priced at around 2,000 yuan, the high cost - performance ratio of Sharge Technology's AI glasses instantly attracted a lot of market attention. Abroad, the crowdfunding price of Sharge Technology's AI glasses is 199 US dollars, and the official price is 300 US dollars, adopting a high - cost - performance pricing strategy similar to that of the Ray - Ban Meta in 2023, whose minimum starting price was 299 US dollars. Since its launch in 2023, the cumulative sales of the latter have exceeded two million units.

Sharge Technology directly crossed over from energy storage to AI glasses, and the two types of products adopt two different, even extreme styles. The reason is the company's precise positioning of products, defining "where to go": one is to find a new channel in the "red - ocean" market, and the other is to seize the market in the "blue - ocean" market.

"AI glasses present a brand - new form and concept. To make more people accept them, there must be no psychological threshold for everyone in terms of price. We hope that consumers can purchase without psychological pressure, so that the products can cover more users and create more value with users," Zhang Bo pointed out. "Effective feedback is very important in the first stage of new products and new brands. New species and new brands must achieve the highest cost - performance ratio with the same performance."

According to Zhang Bo and his team's plan, in addition to mobile phone manufacturers and leading Internet companies, they hope that the company's AI glasses products will rank first in market share in the future. Because the sales and market share goals also determine that the AI glasses must be positioned with high cost - performance.

"During the period of making energy storage products, the competition was already very fierce. There were already large - scale competitors like Anker in the market. Therefore, we formulated a differentiated mid - to high - end product route, not competing on price but on design and performance," Zhang Bo said. The different route choices for energy storage products and AI glasses products are mainly reflected in different market stages. "The energy storage business can probably only create a small mid - to high - end brand, and the market share will not exceed 5% at most."

Different strategies also lead to very different sales targets for the two types of products: In 2025, the sales of energy storage products are expected to reach 300 million yuan, a 50% increase; the annual planned shipment of AI glasses is 500,000 units, with a sales amount of about 600 million yuan.

Similar to the product planning logic, Sharge Technology also defines "where to go" according to different markets when going global.

"Currently, the focus is on North America, Europe, and the United States. The basic logic is that the company's products are among the higher - priced, or even the most expensive, in the charging category. The consumption ability in Southeast Asia is not strong, and it is difficult to achieve a stable and large sales volume for mid - to high - end products." Sharge Technology adopts a steady "positional warfare" in each country, establishing online and offline partners. Through overseas online data, analyzing data tags such as order addresses and traffic sources, and sorting by regions with a large existing user base. For example, English, German, and Japanese are the most widely used languages, so these regions will be covered first and then expanded and replicated.

"Whether it is brand content or other aspects, the target population is selected from the existing sales channels according to the most populous and language - speaking groups for local promotion, and finally cooperate with offline sales channels to promote products to more people." However, regarding the AI glasses products, Zhang Bo said that after launching high - cost - performance products, the Southeast Asian market will be replicated and covered.

It is worth mentioning that in the brand strategy of AI glasses, Sharge Technology adopted a new brand, loomos. The reason behind this is simple and related to the product's positioning. For example, Sharge, the English name of Sharge Technology, is similar to "charge", which may lead to the perception that it is a "fast - charging" brand, while loomos, representing lumen and light, is more in line with the image of glasses.

Achieve "Doing Well"

In fact, in Zhang Bo's view, in the digital 3C market where Sharge Technology operates, China has advantages in innovation ability, low - cost delivery, and labor cost. It can be said that it has the potential for continuous development, but it is also very competitive. However, the combination with AI, the satisfaction of emotional value, and the marketing of precise content can all become market opportunities for an enterprise to develop in the going - global market.

"With the support of AI, there is a possibility for all digital 3C products to be reconstructed by AI. For example, in the case of AI voice recorders, a company grew from a few people to more than 100 people in three years, and its revenue increased from zero to tens of millions of US dollars. The sales far exceeded expectations, and it was supported by a single product; cultural content will also be an opportunity. In the past, China mainly exported OEM products. Now, in addition to Chinese technology, it also represents Chinese aesthetics, which will gradually be accepted by the overseas market. The products jointly launched by the company and The Wandering Earth 2 are very popular among European and American users. The cultural value attached to products must be an important factor in increasing added value and expanding the audience scale; in addition, content marketing will also be an explosive trend. It is already very mature in China. As long as a product can generate valuable content, it can leverage traffic with content, amplify through content, and finally achieve sales conversion. Excellent products sold through Douyin in China can be replicated overseas." Zhang Bo pointed out.

Undoubtedly, Sharge Technology's energy storage products have caught some trends in the past, and now it is seizing the AI trend. In 2023, Sharge Technology decided to enter the AI hardware field and planned to spend one year researching and developing an AI glasses product. In November 2024, Sharge Technology raised tens of millions of yuan in financing, which was planned to be used for the market expansion of AI glasses, AI technology research and development, and talent team building. The first product was launched in December of the same year, and its most important selling points were long - lasting battery life, high - definition shooting, audio - visual quality, and AI capabilities.

To simply understand Sharge Technology's AI glasses product, it can be summarized as a person's second pair of eyes and second brain: Through the assistant - type AI assistant function, it continuously shoots and records to accumulate data, providing services such as itinerary recording and summarization for users, and reducing the memory burden.

Although AI glasses are currently the focus of the market, the "battle of a hundred glasses" highly summarizes the current market competition situation. Many AR glasses companies and Internet giants are releasing corresponding products. But in Zhang Bo's view, when entering this field, since AI has many capabilities other than search, and the search field is highly competitive and suitable for large companies to compete. For small hardware startup teams, they can integrate hardware into the details of life, solve transactional work and memory problems, and enhance people's abilities. "The combination of AI and hardware should find a niche scenario, avoid pursuing a large - scale and all - encompassing product, focus on solving key pain points, meet actual needs, clarify the direction and goals, and continuously iterate."

In the future planning of Sharge Technology's AI glasses business, it will gradually upgrade from shooting to display functions, achieving human - machine co - enhancement. Zhang Bo said that the most important thing about AI glasses is still AI capabilities. "Currently, open - source models already exist, and DeepSeek has laid a good foundation for everyone." At present, Sharge Technology's AI glasses still use public models and different calling strategies for promotion and synchronization to achieve memory and enhancement capabilities. "In the long run, completing the re - training and deployment of the AI assistant model is a very important point at the strategic level for us."

Therefore, Sharge Technology recently introduced Pan Xin, the first research software engineer at Google Brain, the former head of the AI platform at ByteDance, and the co - founder of "Lingyi Wanwu", as a partner of the company, responsible for AI - related technology research and development. Zhang Bo also said that his important work in recent months is to recruit talents, looking for talents with ideas in AI technology, glasses, and going global. "The success of a company ultimately depends on the success of its talents."

Generally speaking, the precisely matched product capabilities and high - quality talent system are becoming the basic capabilities for Sharge Technology to achieve "doing well". In addition, it is also building supply chain capabilities, channel, and marketing capabilities in the overseas market.

"An important point in going global is how to achieve stronger implementation effects? The e - commerce penetration rate in Europe and the United States is lower than that in China and North America. Whether it is glasses or charging products, 90% of people need to complete the experience and fitting offline, and a larger volume requires the participation of local personnel," Zhang Bo pointed out. Sharge Technology is making key breakthroughs in this aspect and will gradually establish and promote a smooth fitting and experience service in the next two or three years.

This will also become a barrier for Sharge Technology in the overseas market.