Coronavirus: Mindray’s medical devices flew off the shelves amid Covid-19. Now Li Xiting says company’s growth is just starting
- Li Xiting, founder and chairman of Shenzhen Mindray, aims to direct the US$91 billion giant to Top 3 in the global market in the longer term
- Mindray plans to build more factories especially in China and increase M&A for acquiring advanced technologies in developed countries, he told the SCMP in an exclusive interview
Mindray’s septuagenarian founder Li Xiting remembered receiving one phone call after another from ambassadors and diplomatic missions in China, all wanting him to supply medical devices, the very thing that represents his company’s raison d’être, as the home-grown alternative to General Electric, Koninklijke Philips, Siemens and other imported brands.
“The next 10 years will be the golden age for China’s entire health care industry, and we will be seeking development opportunities over the next decade,” Li said during an interview with South China Morning Post in Mindray’s sprawling head office, where the statue of a worker with a ventilator on his shoulder stands proudly at the entrance to mark the company’s role in the fight against Covid-19. “Our first goal is to become one of the Top 20 in five to 10 years, the second goal is to reach the Top 10, and then the Top Five or Top Three over the longer term. The long-term goals and their timelines depend on many factors.”
China’s market for medical equipment grew at a compounded rate of 20 per cent over five years to 800 billion yuan in 2020, almost 20 per cent of the global market, according to Deloitte. Bloomberg Intelligence also forecast China’s medical equipment market quadruples its size in the next decade.
Mindray’s growth benefited from Beijing’s prod to reform the nation’s health care system since 2015, as hospitals were required to switch to selling services from selling medicines for income, which stimulated the demand for medical equipment and related materials.