KALAMAZOO ? Mobile-phone external battery maker, mophie, which began life in a pole barn near Kalamazoo a decade ago, had an international coming out party of sorts when it aired its first TV commercials during the Super Bowl, one of the most watched television events each year.
Spending millions of dollars on advertising had not been part of mophie?s sales and marketing strategy before, said Shawn Dougherty, the co-founder and chief operating officer for a company that has captured about 90 percent of the external mobile storage battery market worldwide.
?We surprised everyone with our Super Bowl commercial,? Dougherty said. ?We?ve seen surveys that show it had a tremendous impact on our brand awareness. We now are rated up there with a lot of other big names.?
How big is mophie now? Dougherty said sales topped $250 million for all of 2013. She declined to say what final sales will be for 2014, saying the books had not yet closed.
Last year mophie focused on building the company?s business infrastructure, to prepare this year for the launch of the iPhone 6 mophie battery pack, she said. China manufacturing operations were expanded, and sales offices established in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Hong Kong, China.
Inside sales, accounting, distribution and customer service are handled in Michigan at a former Sears store in Kalamazoo mophie moved into in 2013 not far from the Western Michigan University Business Technology and Research Park. These services had been handled in Paw Paw at a warehouse behind the St. Michelle Winery.
Last year, mophie?s Oshtemo, Michigan, warehouse was expanded to 85,000 square feet, temporarily putting a hold on the BTR Park project. Instead mophie will build a research and development facility there to expand into even more lines.
Currently, mophie makes chargers for the iPhone, including the new iPhone 6, as well as the Samsung Android line of smart phones, including the 3, 4 and 5. What?s more, mophie makes a universal line of chargers that work with USB connected devices.
The company employs 375 people, she said, with 150 in China, 125 in Michigan and 100 in California.
mophie has become one of those Michigan-woman makes good stories. Dougherty graduated from Kalamazoo Central and attended classes at Michigan State University. She co-founded the company in 2005 in Oshtemo Township in a pole barn near her once family?s Dougherty?s Corner Market on West Main Street. Then it was called mStation Audio LLC, and sold audio docking systems for Apple?s iPod music players. In 2006, Dougherty and co-founder Daniel Huang acquired mophie, assumed its name and shifted into designing and manufacturing intelligent cases and accessories for the iPhone. The new mophie was launched in 2007.
When a company gets as big as mophie, and has such an enormous upside market potential, talk sometime turns to whether it is positioning itself to go public on Wall Street. But Dougherty said going public isn?t even on the company?s current agenda.
?That would take a lot more infrastructure build-out,? she said. ?We?re enjoying being private.?
But when asked what it is like to be building a business that could crack a billion dollars in sales in a few years, Dougherty admitted her life has exceeded her dreams.
?It sure makes everything more interesting. Right now, I?m just trying to keep my boots on the ground.?
Mike Brennan is Editor and Publisher of MITechNews.Com. If you have a story idea for MITechNews.Com, email Brennan at [email protected]
