A Zhuhai 3C company rakes in 1.8 billion yuan in annual revenue from a niche segment overlooked by established giants | Insight Global
Editor's Note: As going global becomes an increasingly core strategy for Chinese companies, how to conquer the global market has become an extremely professional topic. In the evolution of globalization, many Chinese brands have stood at the forefront of the trend. In view of this, Yingke has launched the "Insight Global" column to explore the cutting - edge directions and opportunities for Chinese brands to go global from the perspective of brand growth and change, providing thoughts and inspiration for companies going global and the industry.
This is the 45th issue of our column. The printer industry is a field monopolized by foreign giants. In Zhuhai, known as the "Capital of Printing Consumables", there is a company that has "made the most of its resources". It has grown from producing printing consumables to researching and developing portable printers. The company's revenue has increased from 4 million yuan to 1.8 billion yuan, a 449 - fold increase in 11 years, making it the absolute leader in the niche market.
Author | Zhang Ziyi
Editor | Yuan Silai
Quyin Technology has become a well - known hardware company going global in Zhuhai. With portable printers and other related niche products, the company's revenue has increased from 4 million yuan to 1.8 billion yuan, a 449 - fold increase in 11 years.
However, founder Guo Jinpeng still remembers that during the toughest times of entrepreneurship, Quyin Technology suffered continuous losses for three years. Guo Jinpeng sold one of his houses and also mortgaged another. He almost received calls from team members every night.
Zhuhai is the global production base for printer consumables, supplying 80% of the world's printer ribbons. However, in terms of printers themselves, nearly 80% of the global printer market is monopolized by American and Japanese companies. Although the market has a scale of nearly tens of billions of dollars, it is basically saturated. Coupled with the unstable global economic environment and tightened user budgets, the shipment volume has been declining year after year.
It is not easy to do printer business even in an industrial cluster like Zhuhai.
The predecessor of Quyin Technology, Aimo Technology, initially produced printing consumables such as label ribbons. This is an extremely niche market. Initially, the products were so unpopular that there was no customs code for their export.
In 2015, Quyin Technology opened a store on Amazon and tried to develop a B2C business. Guo Jinpeng faced many difficulties at the beginning, but finally grasped the niche printing needs in the household scenario and tapped into the potential market.
In 2016, after the portable printer became a hit product, Quyin's growth has been unimpeded.
Currently, Quyin has several self - owned brands such as Phomemo, Yinxiansen, Aimo, and YCN. Since 2022, it has become the company with the highest global sales of portable printers.
01 Redefine the Product
Every office worker who has ever printed documents has struggled to connect to the office printer. When receiving work - related printing requests outside the office, they have also experienced the frustration of not being able to find a printing shop.
In the past, printers were mainly targeted at the enterprise - level market. Most of them were bulky, mainly in black, white, and gray colors, and the operation was not user - friendly.
Therefore, Quyin Technology developed the smallest and lightest A4 printer on the market. The original intention was to create a portable printer for people who travel frequently, enabling double - sided printing. The product R & D team disassembled more than 20 printers and electronic products, tried nearly 10 materials, and after nearly a year of R & D, finally produced an A4 printer weighing only 285 grams.
This lightweight printer accidentally attracted Quyin's Middle Eastern customers.
"When we went to overseas exhibitions, Middle Eastern customers were very excited when they saw this printer. They have many scenarios for mobile office, such as mobile courts in government departments, mobile law enforcement, and business negotiations, all of which have on - site document printing needs. A portable printer can solve these problems," Li Xiaohui, the deputy general manager of Quyin Technology, told Yingke.
The product was initially targeted at the domestic mobile - office population, but it has stimulated the needs of the overseas mobile - office population.
Finding niche scenarios and needs for products has become an important idea for Quyin Technology in product design.
The same is true for the first - generation hit product, the label printer D30.
In the past, traditional label printing was mainly used in enterprise offices, large factories, and logistics centers. Even small desktop label printers were 20 - 30 centimeters long. Early thermal printing technology was mainly used in logistics, transportation, medicine, retail, asset management, and manufacturing to print product barcodes, and was widely used in industrial applications.
However, Quyin has fully transferred traditional printing industrial technology to consumer - level application scenarios.
When developing the D30 product in the early stage, Quyin adopted ink - free printing, which does not require toner and is more environmentally friendly. It can be used wirelessly, has a built - in battery, and supports Bluetooth transmission. These designs are all for greater convenience when going out. Therefore, seven years after its launch, the D30 is still the best - selling product in the Amazon label printer category.
Quyin products
After the D30, Quyin continued to refine the scenarios into education, household, and other fields, and launched niche products, expanding from label printing to portable printers of different forms. Since then, Quyin has occupied a place in the niche market of portable printers.
02 Printers Are No Longer Just Devices
For many years, the printer industry has not been a field that attracts entrepreneurs' attention. On the one hand, traditional players from the US, Japan, and South Korea have monopolized more than 200,000 patents globally, which has greatly hindered the entry of emerging enterprises.
On the other hand, the market imagination of the printer industry is limited. Different from the cool and technological aspects of 3D printers in the manufacturing level, traditional printers mainly play the role of accessories for electronic products, with strong functional attributes and are more widely used in enterprise - level and industrial - level fields.
When Quyin Technology's portable printers first entered the overseas market, they once faced the embarrassing situation of not being able to find users. There were no comparable products in the overseas market at that time. Although there was little competition, there were also very few potential consumer - level users.
The opportunity for a sales explosion was that Quyin discovered the overseas users' demand for printing Christmas stickers and started marketing in the gift - giving direction.
Overseas DIY creative enthusiasts are a large consumer group that has been ignored in the past.
A study by the American Creative Industries Association showed that in 2016, 63% of American housewives participated in at least one handicraft creative activity, and 40% of the respondents said they spent more than 20 hours a week on it. The handicraft creative group is large and active.
After researching the overseas market, Quyin Technology also found that personalized DIY expression is a prominent demand of overseas users, but the DIY needs of different groups also vary. For example, some people print books during special festivals and give them to friends after decoration; some use it to print sticker art for hand - made notebooks, thermal stickers, or tattoo paper; and some print blessing notes to put in Fortune Cookies.
Quyin's internal content team has about 100 people. The main work of the team is to continuously launch different types of printing materials. Since the usage requirements of overseas consumers are extremely personalized, it is also very important to interact with consumers, which will in turn promote the R & D of new products.
"The demand for tattoo paper came from consumer feedback. They wanted to print tattoos for tattoo artists to use. After understanding this, we started to research and develop related consumables and products, and the market response after the launch was very good," Li Xiaohui said.
Quyin realized that although printers output physical products, it is actually the content that drives consumers to keep using printers.
Focusing on content services has become Quyin's direction.
Quyin Technology has added a lot of content services to the printer's built - in APP. From initially providing basic transmission services and usage guides, now Quyin provides 6 APPs according to different niche products and consumer groups, covering different materials and functions, including text, tables, emojis, and hand - drawn elements, to assist users' DIY needs.
Currently, Quyin has about 5 million global mobile APP users. Quyin hopes to develop a user - paid model, including but not limited to AI or filter processing of printed content by printers, and cloud storage space functions.
Yingke learned that in addition to the content services provided by different APPs, in community marketing, Quyin Technology's overseas self - owned brand Xiwen regularly holds various activities such as new product trials, DIY handicraft competitions, and skill exchanges on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. On the independent website, Xiwen has a special community section to display users' DIY works, and users can directly join the Discord community in this section to interact with like - minded people, further strengthening user connections.
Quyin represents the growth path of this generation of hardware companies. What makes Quyin stand out is not the hardware itself, but the deeper connection with users when the content community grows. When the parameters of products are already very similar, providing continuous emotional value to users may be an important way to ensure user stickiness.