Intelligent Hardware Device Company Anker Innovation Forms A Robot Team

The cross-border leader Anker Innovation is actively recruiting and preparing to make further progress in the field of humanoid robots.

On October 30th, a source close to Anker Innovation confirmed to reporters that Anker Innovation has formed a team for humanoid robots, led by Liu Fang, former head of production at Xiaomi‘s smart driving division. Liu Fang reports directly to Anker Innovation’s vice president and president of Smart Innovations Frank Zhu.

However, as of the time of publication, Anker Innovation has not responded to this matter.

According to public information, Liu Fang was an early employee of Xiaomi and was once in charge of the life yellow pages business at MIUI. Later, he became the technical leader and production leader of autonomous driving products at Xiaomi‘s automotive division.

Before Liu Fang, in July 2023, former head of autonomous driving AI at XPeng, Patrick Liu joined Anker Innovation to work on research and development in robotics, large models, and other aspects of embodied intelligence. After a few months at Anker Innovation, Patrick Liu confirmed his move to NVIDIA in February 2024 to lead the L2+ and urban NOA business sectors.

Regarding the reason for Patrick Liu’s departure, sources revealed that during his five or six months as VP at Anker Innovation, he did not work according to his own plans. Another news states that after Patrick Liu joined Anker Innovation, he is mainly responsible for the intelligent transformation of Anker’s existing businesses such as robotic vacuum cleaners and AIoT. During this period, Anker Innovation has been exploring the humanoid robot business and has not yet formed a dedicated team.

The journalist noticed that Anker Innovation is recruiting ontology engineers, Unity engineers, embodied intelligent algorithm engineers, robot product managers and other related positions in the field of robotics on their platform. This means that this company, which started with businesses such as power banks and data cables, is already preparing talents for its embodied robot business. Based on the recruitment locations, it is likely that Anker Innovation’s embodied robot team is distributed in Beijing and Shenzhen.

In the field of embodied robots, Anker Innovation has accumulated some experience.

In June 2016, Anker Innovation released its first eufy series sweeping robot overseas. According to a report by IDC, in the second quarter of this year, Anker Innovation’s sweeping robots ranked seventh globally in terms of shipments.

Anker Innovations is an intelligent hardware equipment company founded in 2011. It entered the market with the “Anker” brand and sells charging products through cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon.

In recent years, the company has been expanding its product line, successively launching products such as data cables, car chargers, etc. Anker Innovations also has multiple brands including Soundcore for audio, Eufy for smart home devices, Nebula for smart projectors, AnkerMake for consumer-grade 3D printers, AnkerWork for office meetings and other products designed for various scenarios.

Robots have also been included in its target areas. Previously, it frequently invested in robot companies, such as the consumer-grade robot developer ‘KEYi Tech’ and the emerging pool robot brand ‘SensOmics’.

SEE ALSO: Astribot’s New AI Robot Assistant S1 Officially Debuts at the World Robot Conference

Anker Innovation categorizes its robot business, including robotic vacuum cleaners, as part of the ‘intelligent innovation’ category. Regarding this type of business, Anker Innovation’s founder and chairman Steven Yang once stated in a media interview that they would only consider investing if there is an opportunity to become one of the top three globally in that category. Anker Innovation expands its product categories by internally forming new teams, with internal committees fully discussing whether or not to proceed and leaving specific implementation details to small entrepreneurial teams.

Steven Yang believes that in the next 30 years, robots will be at the core of capabilities for 3C (computing, communication, and consumer electronics), including vision, perception, decision-making, control, and execution. These capabilities will be reflected across all categories within 3C; without these abilities, the path forward will become increasingly narrow.

On the evening of October 29, Anke Innovation released its third-quarter report. In the first three quarters of 2024, the company achieved a revenue of approximately 16.449 billion yuan, an increase of 39.56% year-on-year; the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was approximately 1.472 billion yuan, an increase of 21.29% year-on-year.

At the beginning of trading on October 30 in A-shares market, Anke Innovation’s stock price rose slightly before falling back. As of press time, the stock price closed at 79.85 yuan per share, down by 4.84%.