OpinionTCL Healthcare challenges global giants
New firm sets its sights on the likes of General Electric, Siemens, Phillips and Toshiba for a share of the lucrative 20 billion yuan business
A battle over market share in the mainland often plays out in a scenario that pits home-grown companies churning out affordable, low-end products against foreign rivals enjoying bumper sales with established brands.
But Hu Hai, chief executive of TCL Healthcare, said that while mainland companies usually played the underdog role in competition with big global names they were slowing catching up.
One area in which they are exuding more confidence and shaking up their foreign rivals' monopolies is the more than 20 billion yuan (HK$24.4 billion) diagnostic imaging equipment sector.
For Hu the decision to join TCL Group, a mainland consumer electronics group, had an emotional motivation.
"China's medical equipment market has been dominated by foreign brands for 30 years," he said. "For me, there has been a thirst to feel the nationalistic pride of churning out our own products."
TCL Healthcare, a joint venture between TCL and China-focused private-equity group HAO Capital, was the first mainland company to start competing in the hi-tech diagnostic imaging equipment sector which encompasses X-ray, ultrasound, CT and MRI devices.
Hao Capital made its investment into TCL Healthcare in July via its investment platform SKR which is headed by Chih Chen, a 30-year veteran of the health-care industry and former president of health-care businesses in China for General Electric (GE). Hu was also a former executive with GE health care.