The Melbourne distributor that helped build Eufy into a $200M+ market force is about to be shown the door — again.

Directed Electronics is staring down another existential crisis after Chinese tech powerhouse Anker Innovations moved to strip the embattled distributor of its Australian salesrights to the Anker and Eufy brands — a loss that threatens to hollow out one of its last remaining high-growth businesses.

The Company will retain fulfillment rights.

Sources with direct knowledge of the arrangement have told ChannelNews that Anker is establishing its own Australian operation, reducing Directed to little more than a warehouse and delivery service.

CEO Steve Siolis has so far declined to comment.

The news lands like a second punch to a company still reeling from one of the most damaging splits in Australian consumer electronics history.

The Sony Wound That Never Healed
In 2021, Sony abruptly terminated its long-standing distribution agreement with Directed Electronics — a relationship understood to have been worth more than $30 million in annual revenue.

The fallout was brutal and swift.

Sony Australia’s then-Consumer Electronics chief Abel Makhraz was dramatically removed from the business following internal investigations directly linked to the breakdown of the Sony relationship.

The circumstances surrounding that split were never fully explained publicly, leaving the industry to speculate about what went wrong between two parties who had built a significant business together.

The Sony implosion shook Directed and the industry to its foundations.

Now, sources say history is repeating itself — this time with even higher stakes.

The Brand Directed Built — And Is Now Losing

The bitter irony is that Directed Electronics is largely responsible for making Eufy a household name in Australia.

Since Eufy entered the Australian market around 2019, Directed aggressively drove the brand into the country’s biggest retailers — JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, Officeworks and Bunnings — deploying sharp pricing strategies and generous retailer margins that rapidly won shelf space and consumer loyalty.

The results were extraordinary. Eufy security cameras now command an estimated 50 per cent of Australia’s home security camera market. The brand has since expanded well beyond cameras into robot vacuums, smart lighting and connected home devices — a consumer electronics empire built in large part on Directed’s distribution muscle.

Now, Anker wants that empire for itself.

The Warning Signs Were There
Industry insiders say the writing was on the wall when Anker opened a branded retail store at Melbourne’s Chadstone Shopping Centre — one of Australia’s highest-profile retail locations. It was not the move of a company content to operate through a third-party distributor.

The first concrete signal of the new direct strategy comes with the launch of the Eufy S2 robot vacuum cleaner on May 22, 2026 — a flagship product launch that sources say will be managed entirely by Anker’s new Australian entity, bypassing Directed almost entirely other than for fulfilment.

Anker’s ambitions stretch well beyond consumer electronics. At All Energy Australia 2025, the company announced partnerships with Amber Electric, Origin Energy and Harvey Norman as part of a major push into home energy storage through its Anker SOLIX division. With a potential Hong Kong IPO looming, analysts say Anker cannot afford to have its Australian margins and brand positioning controlled by an intermediary.

A Familiar Playbook — And Directed Is the Victim Again

What is unfolding is a pattern that has become disturbingly familiar in Australian consumer electronics distribution: a Chinese manufacturer uses a local distributor to build market share, establish retail relationships and educate consumers — then cuts them out once the groundwork is done.
Directed is not the first casualty of this model. It may not be the last. But given its history with Sony, it is among the most exposed.

The company has faced additional scrutiny over its involvement with Toys”R”Us ANZ, after a commercial agreement unravelled when the retailer collapsed into voluntary administration in 2025. Directed Group subsequently emerged connected to the acquisition of Toys”R”Us Australia’s assets — the brand’s current Australian website now identifies itself as “Part of the Directed Group of companies.”

The Bottom Line
For Directed Electronics, the loss of Anker and Eufy distribution rights would not merely be a financial blow — it would be a reputational one. Losing a second major brand anchor in the space of five years raises fundamental questions about the company’s ability to retain and protect its most valuable commercial relationships.

For Anker, the calculus is coldly simple: why share the margin when you can own the market?