Market Size and Where the Cabinets Sit
Shared power banks are placed in malls, restaurants, hotels, cinemas, and transport hubs. A customer scans a code to rent or return a pack and pays by the hour. iResearch put the China market at about RMB 15 billion in 2023, with more than 5 million units in the field and more than 400 million users. The cabinet — the base station the packs sit in — has to stay online for rent and return, billing, and status. Sites are scattered and rarely have a fixed Wi-Fi, so 4G/5G is standard and more than 95% of cabinets are connected.
Core Pain Points
Cabinets that are hard to service: Units are spread widely. Faults, full slots, and empty slots still depend on someone walking the route, so restock work orders move slowly. Billing and venue share: Rent, return, and charges need a live link, and that link has to talk to the payment platform and the venue’s revenue-share system. Restock routing: Battery level and slot state are reported as they change, which is what makes restock tickets and route planning possible, and what keeps a customer from finding nothing to rent or nowhere to return a pack.
Technical Standards and Terminology
The category sits under GB 4943, Safety of Information Technology Equipment, plus battery-safety rules. Common terms: 4G Cat.1 (low- to mid-rate cellular, a fit for cabinets); M2M (device-to-platform communication); IoT (Internet of Things); SaaS (the operations platform); OTA (over-the-air update). Rent and return commands are expected in under 2 seconds. Slot and battery reports go out every 1–5 minutes. A cabinet typically uses 80–150 MB a month. Typical operators: Energy Monster, Jiedian, Xiaodian, and Laidian.
A Field Example
A leading operator connected 1 million cabinets over 4G. Full slots, empty slots, and faults raise an alert as they happen, and restock tickets are dispatched from that data. The share of customers who cannot rent a pack fell by about 40%, and labor productivity in maintenance rose by 50%.
Where IoT Is Used
Rent, return, and billing: After the scan, the cloud sends an unlock command. Rent, return, and charge records come back immediately, and the same session ties into payments, membership, and coupons.
Cabinet monitoring: Cabinet state, slot occupancy, pack charge, and fault codes are reported as they change. Full, empty, and fault conditions raise alerts and open restock tickets.
Operations analysis: Rent frequency, revenue, and fault rate tell the operator which sites are worth keeping, where to move cabinets, and how to price the hour.
Where the Market Is Heading
Fast-charge and higher-capacity packs are spreading. Operators are pairing cabinets with shared bikes, shared massage chairs, and similar on-site services. Expansion is aimed at Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States. Deals with malls and brand campaigns are getting tighter.
Summary
A shared power bank only works if the cabinet can rent, bill, and call for a restock. SimtoLink supplies 4G/5G IoT SIM cards and communication modules for this business, so cabinets stay online and operators can run a leaner field team without making the rental harder to use.