Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited Announces 2020 Interim Report

SHANGHAI, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Good Doctor  ("Ping An Good Doctor", 01833.HK), the world's leading online healthcare platform, announced the revenue of RMB 2.747 billion for the first half of this year, according to the company's latest financial report. 

Ping An Good Doctor performed strongly despite the economic headwind and market downturn with its online medical business—which grew by 106.8%—now contributing RMB 695 million to the company's overall total revenue.

The company posted growth in both revenue and user traffic, while further strengthening its online medical service capabilities

The online medical service sector has played an important role in fighting COVID-19, with Ping An Good Doctor playing a prominent part in combating the disease by enhancing the speed at which online diagnosis and treatment services are being implemented, a move that has coincided with greater adoption of its platform by users.  

In the first half of 2020, Ping An Good Doctor's core online medical business further strengthened its service capabilities and significantly enhanced its profitability. During the reporting period, the online medical business recorded a strong growth of 106.8% in revenue, accounting for 25.3% of the company's total revenue, surging 10.5 percentage points compared to 14.8% in the corresponding period of 2019. Driven by the strong growth of the core business, the company's total revenue reached RMB 2.747 billion, a rise of 20.9%. Net loss narrowed by 22.1% year on year to RMB 213 million. In addition, other businesses including consumer medical, the health mall and health management, all recorded year-on-year increases respectively.

Thanks to significant increases in the adoption of online diagnosis and treatment services among patients, Ping An Good Doctor's online platform continued to see strong growth in user traffic over the past six months. As of the end of June 2020, the company's total number of registered users reached 346 million, an increase of 30.98 million compared to the end of 2019 and accumulated increase of 56.9 million during the past 12 months. In June 2020, the number of monthly active users and paid users reached 67.27 million and 2.95 million respectively, up 7.3% and 32.3% over the prior-year period.

The financial performance of its online medical business and increased growth in user traffic demonstrates Ping An Good Doctor's expanding presence and enhanced user loyalty in the online healthcare market, as the company continues to meet the essential medical needs of patients through its mobile health app.

The company posts strong growth in sales of member products thanks to its enhanced medical service capabilities

Since early 2018, Ping An Good Doctor has been accumulating experience in product operation and strengthening medical service capabilities to enhance its membership-based services with the launch of Health 360, a membership-based service for the policy users of Ping An Life Insurance.

In early 2020, the company rolled out Health Guard 360, the upgrade version of Health 360. The new service has been highly praised by insurance policy holders, agents and users. In the first half of 2020, the sales of Health Guard 360 showed a significant year on year growth.

With its ongoing commitment to strengthening medical service capabilities, the company has established a good reputation among users while further expanding the user base with revenue from existing member products growing 200% year on year to over 420 million yuan in the reporting period.

Additionally, Ping An Good Doctor has to date provided the employees of over 500 corporate customers across the real estate, medicine and retail sectors with comprehensive services, including one-on-one online consultations with doctors practicing in the private sector and assisting or accompanying the patients throughout the entire process of their visits at physical healthcare organizations, from outpatient registration and payment to diagnosis. The survey has shown that Ping An Good Doctor's Private Doctor, an internet-based healthcare platform that provides all-round medical and healthcare services, has been well-received among its users. From the upgrading business operation to meeting the demands of user, the membership-based service is bound to unleash the huge market potential for the industry.

Accelerating the establishment of internet hospitals backed by the popularization of medical insurance

Online medical services have become a major driving force in the roll out of tripartite healthcare system reform in recent years. Since the onset of COVID-19, healthcare administrations in China have issued a series of guidelines to support online medical institutions, especially those that provide online medical services for follow-up and repeat visits by patients suffering from common or chronic diseases, and those who are covered by the country's national basic medical insurance programs.

Ping An Good Doctor has undertaken efforts to ensure its medical care services are covered by the national medical insurance fund, while expanding the development of its internet hospitals. As of the middle of August 2020, the company has signed contracts for constructing internet hospitals by working closely with offline hospitals, and 14 of them have already in operation. The rest will be gradually put into operations and actively connected to local SHI payment systems. Now, the company has already connected to the provincial platform in Hubei province as well as the platforms serving Dongguan in Guangdong province and Yinchuan in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, providing convenient, efficient and secure online medical services to local residents.

In addition, Ping An Good Doctor empowers public hospitals by, in large measure, facilitating access to online diagnosis and treatment as the online medical services provider has started providing virtual follow-up visits and prescription refilling services to patients who have been treated in person at a local hospital. Of note, the regional Internet hospital platform in Fuzhou set up by Ping An Good Doctor at the end of 2019 became operational in mid-July 2020.

Moving forward, Ping An Good Doctor plans to accelerate the establishment of internet hospitals independently or by collaborating with partners in an effort to extend its business ecosystem to multiple scenarios, and offer convenient, efficient and safe online medical services to a growing number of patients and users.

Ping An Good Doctor is firmly dedicated to its corporate social responsibility, with one of the results the firm's active response to the government's Health China 2030 Plan, which, at the same time, can serve as a vehicle for further business expansion. Of note, the company has worked closely with local governments to promote the country's rural healthcare programs. As of June 30, 2020, the company had upgraded over 900 health clinics in outlying and hard-to-reach areas, trained nearly 1 million doctors working in rural districts and provided free healthcare services to over 66,000 living outside of China's urbanized regions. By doing so, the company has greatly alleviated the shortage of medical resources in rural areas while effectively improving the quality of medical services and the health of populations in economically-disadvantaged zones.

Upgrading strategy for all operations to build core barriers to entry

With years of experience and accumulated expertise, the company now boasts a huge user base that continues driving traffic to its platform while continuing to consolidate its leadership position in the market. Online healthcare firms may benefit from an explosive growth in online consultations and visitor traffic in the short term. The daily average number of consultations reached 831,000 in the first half of 2020, up 26.7% year on year.

In the medium and long term, the growth driven by the pandemic will help further differentiate uniquely positioned firms from the competition and consolidate their leadership in the online healthcare sector. In view of this, Ping An Good Doctor decided to shift its focus to raising barriers to entry by implementing a new growth strategy backed by its unique resources.

In mid-2020, the company announced that it would take a strategic approach to the next stage of transformation. By leveraging favorable government policies and its core competitiveness, Ping An Good Doctor developed a new growth strategy with a focus on strengthening its leadership position by improving its health management and healthcare services while accelerating the construction of online and offline ecosystems. The company remains committed to connecting patients and physicians and building trust in its professional and easy-to-use lineup of services in anticipation of creating one of China's largest online healthcare service platforms enhanced by a cutting-edge business model and some of the industry's strongest barriers to entry.

Ping An Good Doctor plans to continue investing more resources in individual users (patients), insurance customers (policy holders), corporate customers (corporate employees) and internet hospitals (built in tandem with local hospitals) to strengthen online medical services and health management services, while actively expanding the offline cooperation network, a grouping of facilities that conduct annual and periodic checkups, lab testing, fitness training and beauty care, to create a one-stop closed-loop ecosystem.

Ping An Good Doctor will continue to increase investment, expand its own medical team, proactively identify and link up with well-known medical resources both in China and abroad. The company will build a global network for doctors with multi-sited licensed practice and further grow the online business, while widening the scope of collaborative efforts with offline medical institutions, to provide patients with more comprehensive and professional medical services.

SOURCE Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited