The doctor will see you now … over the smartphone as Ping An Good Doctor launches new services, tie-ups to tap China’s unmet demand
- China’s largest online health care platform plans to unveil partnerships with 20 companies next week as it looks to tap China’s 100 million middle class families
- Ping an Good Doctor narrows first-half loss to 272.5 million yuan from 444.2 million yuan last year
Ping An Healthcare and Technology is set to unveil tie-ups with more than 20 firms including China Mobile and China Everbright Bank, as the mainland’s largest online health care platform by users seeks to boost revenue and reduce losses.
The cross-marketing blitz, to be announced next week, will help the five-year-old start-up – better known as Ping An Good Doctor – target higher fee-paying customers whose needs are not met by the state-run medical system, Wang Tao, chairman and chief executive, said in an interview on Tuesday.
“We have many middle class people with the money to spend but are lacking the channels to upgrade their medical services experience due to capacity limitations of the state medical system,” he said after the company reported lower losses in the first half. “We hired many of them [state hospital doctors] to be our full-time doctors to serve such needs.”
Ping An Good Doctor posted a net loss of 272.5 million yuan (US$38.7 million) for the six months ended June, down from 444.2 million yuan in the year-earlier period.
According to a Bloomberg poll of analysts, the company is expected to almost break-even in 2021.