TCL Healthcare to take on global giants
Names such as General Electric, Siemens, Phillips and Toshiba are under threat from home-grown firms in the medical imaging sector
A battle over market share in China often pits home-grown companies making 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, they were gaining more muscle.
One area in which they are exuding more confidence and shaking up foreign rivals is the lucrative diagnostic imaging equipment sector.
For Hu the decision to joining 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 Group and HAO Capital - a private equity group - 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 subsidiary investment platform SKR which is headed by Chih Chen, a 30-year veteran of the health-care industry and former president of General Electric's (GE) healthcare businesses in China.