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Case Study

Candles Killer: Lighting up the world at the bottom of the pyramid

By Winter Nie and Yunfei Feng

6 pages

May 2025

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Reference: IMD-2661

Shenzhen Power-Solution (SPS), founded in 2009 in China as an entrepreneurial venture, disrupted traditional lighting markets in African villages with its flagship product, Candles Killer. This solar lamp, priced under $5, replaces hazardous kerosene lamps and has an optimized design (9 components, water-bottle stands). The candles killer solar lamp addresses the critical need for affordable, safe and sustainable lighting for people at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP), a huge market that multinationals struggle to reach. By achieving both low cost and differentiation, SPS created a blue ocean market. The company has made remarkable progress in its mission to provide solar lighting to underserved communities: by 2023, it illuminated over 55 million people across 7.8 million households in 66 countries. Beyond social impact, SPS achieved environmental sustainability at scale, reducing cumulative carbon emissions by 6.7 million tons, the equivalent of planting 368 million evergreen trees. Candles Killer’s success led SPS to expand its product line into a solar home system for phone charging and multi-bulb lighting. SPS also introduced Solar Media, a platform with pre-loaded content (medical tips, farming methods, education) to share vital knowledge in remote regions.

Learning Objective

To gain an understanding of the BOP market.
To understand how to serve the BOP market with an entrepreneurship and business mindset.
To learn blue ocean strategy.

Keywords

Sustainability, Customer Centricity, Innovation, Strategy, Bottom of the Pyramid, Blue Ocean Strategy, Affordable Energy, Clean Energy

Settings

Africa, China
Shenzhen Power-Solution, Energy, Utilities, Electricity Supply, Consumer Goods, Consumer Electronics
2009-2024

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

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Teaching note

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