According to a report by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan’s Olympus is launching an offensive against the Chinese medical device market. Not only will the sales staff increase from 600 to 660 in the spring of 2016, but high-performance surgical instruments independently developed will be launched in the near future. Some Chinese companies have gained a foothold in the medical device market with low cost advantages. Japanese companies, including Olympus, plan to accelerate their entry into the Chinese medical device market by increasing salespeople and selling high-performance products.
It is reported that Olympus will expand the sales staff who can explain the endoscope and other equipment in detail. At present, there are about 1,300 Chinese hospitals using Olympus products, mainly in large cities. Future sales focus will shift to local cities. At the same time, in order to ensure product performance, Olympus further improved the after-sales maintenance system. It plans to double the maintenance capacity of 9,000 units a year to 20,000 units a year. Increase the number of hiring professional technicians while increasing maintenance equipment.
According to British research firm Espicom, China's medical device market reached about 20 billion US dollars in 2014, ranking fourth in the world. It will reach 33 billion US dollars by 2017, becoming the second largest market in the world after the United States. Olympus Asia Pacific's medical sales in the fiscal year 2013 (as of March 14) reached 69.7 billion yen, an increase of nearly 30% year-on-year, of which the Chinese market accounted for nearly half.
Toshiba Medical Systems is also working to accelerate the process of launching new products in China. Traditionally, China has been selling new products about two years later than Japan. However, the approval procedures for MRI issued by Toshiba in February 2015 were carried out simultaneously with Japan, shortening the time difference by about one year.
In addition, in order to expand the catheter market for cardiovascular disease, Terumo has placed training equipment at five sales outlets in China to train Chinese doctors to learn Japanese treatments such as catheters. But Chinese companies are also using relatively simple medical devices to capture the market with price advantage. Companies such as Olympus believe that "improving product performance and improving service systems will be indispensable in the future."
Yancheng Rongtai Labware Co.,Ltd , https://www.rongtailab.com