Ping An Good Doctor, China’s biggest online health care platform, aims to expand its services in Southeast Asia later this year to cater to the growing demand from the region and mainlanders travelling for medical tourism.
According to the South China Morning Post, the company, officially known as Ping An Healthcare and Technology, has announced the formation of a 70:30 venture with Southeast Asian ride-hailing platform Grab, which will give users in the region access to artificial intelligence-assisted online medical consultations, medicine delivery and appointment bookings.
Wang Tao, chairman of Ping An Good Doctor said Thailand is a good country in which to start because of the availability of low-cost, high-quality services provided by private medical centres.
It will also keep an eye on the growing medical tourism market as an increasing number of mainland Chinese looking for international medical services. Wang said they would also cooperate with hospitals in the region to provide online and offline medical services to Chinese users.
According to Ctrip, China’s largest online tourism agency, in 2016 over 500,000 outbound medical trips were taken, five times the number in 2015. Average spending was over 50,000 yuan (US$7,286), 10 times the expenditure for individual overseas trips.
Spun off from Ping An Insurance Group, China’s biggest insurer by market value, Ping An Good Doctor was the first technology unicorn, a start-up valued at over US$1 billion. It listed in Hong Kong in May this year.
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