HONG KONG, Aug. 1, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- China's leading one-stop healthcare ecosystem platform, Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited ("Ping An Good Doctor", the "Company", stock code: 1833.HK), is pleased to announce that the service of "One-Minute Consultation + One-Hour Drug Delivery" now covers over 80 cities in the country, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The service has also established cooperation with over 10,000 pharmacies, including famous pharmacy brands like Yifeng Pharmacy, Nepstar Drugstore, LBX Pharmacy and Gouda Drugstore.
"One-Minute Consultation + One-Hour Drug Delivery" provides users with a one-stop service featuring a quick consultation and one-hour drug delivery. Statistics show that the number of orders made by users has doubled and the compliment rate of users is over 95%, highlighting the good reputation of the service since its launch. Today, the service covers over 90% of the population of the cities where it's used. The service uses about 100,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) such as Western and Chinese medicines, tonics, equipment and personal care products.
A representative of Ping An Good Doctor said the Company aims to expand the service to over 200 cities in the country and tens of thousands of pharmacies, serving hundreds of millions of users. It also aims to move the service network of "One-Minute Consultation + One-Hour Drug Delivery", from tier 1 and 2 cities to tier 3 and 4 cities.
Create a Service Circle of "One-Minute Consultation + One-Hour Drug Delivery"
Recently, the "Statistical Analysis Report on the Operation of Drug Distribution Industry in 2017" released by the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China showed that the total sales of the seven types of drugs in China in 2017 was RMB201.6 billion, an increase of 8.4% after deducting incomparable factors. The total pharmaceutical retail market reached RMB400.3 billion, an increase of 9.0% year-on-year.
Although the pharmaceutical retail market continues to grow, there are still the problems of "difficult to buy medicine" for consumers and "difficult to find customers" for pharmacies. The problems stem from the relatively narrow current domestic drug purchase channels and the online pharmaceutical retail rate is low. A research report by CITIC Securities suggests China's online pharmaceutical consumption currently accounts for only 0.35%, which is much lower than the 30% in the United States.
In response to this pain-point, the State Council of the People's Republic of China released "Opinions on Further Reforming and Improving the Policy of Drug Production and Use" in February last year, to encourage "Internet + Drug Circulation" and support the cooperation between drug circulation enterprises and internet companies. It also helps further promote online and offline integration, develop new business types, and standardize online pharmaceutical retail services as well as promoting new distribution channels such as "Order Online and Collect in Store". On April 28 2018, the State Council released the "Opinions on Promoting the Development of 'Internet + Medical Health'" and set directions of Internet + Healthcare at various levels as well as emphasizing a push to improve the drug supply service via "Internet+".
As the first medical platform for online drug delivery services in China, Ping An Good Doctor has built a "One-Minute Consultation + One-Hour Drug Delivery" closed-loop service for online and offline integration, providing the one-stop full-chain service of online quick consultation, medical guidance, electronic prescriptions, lightning purchases, one-hour delivery of medicines, and continuously optimizes the user experience in consultation and medicine purchasing.
Since it was established, Ping An Good Doctor has created the "Fast + Accurate" online consultation service process through the model of "AI doctor + Internal Medical Team + External Doctors", which targets the pain-point of "three-hour queuing, five-minute consultation" in traditional medical treatment scenarios. The users log in to the APP of Ping An Good Doctor, and click "quickly ask doctors", then the service recommends a doctor through AI consultation. The doctor receives the admission in one minute. The doctor then provides the user with a one-to-one online consultation service with a duration no less than 15 minutes, ensuring the user's online consultation service experience and service quality of doctor-to-user.
When the doctor has provided accurate medical consultation services to the user, the electronic prescription can be simultaneously issued and recommended according to the user's symptoms. After that, Ping An Good Doctor will intelligently match the user to the closest pharmacy, and the pharmacy will complete the drug delivery service within an hour. For the user, the service provides one-stop demand for medical treatment, medicine purchase and drug delivery as fast as possible.
Implementation of "One-Hour Drug Delivery" to drive the medical service upgrade among tier 3 and 4 cities
Ping An Good Doctor is gradually achieving the service of "One-Minute Consultation + One-Hour Drug Delivery", covering over 200 cities. Apart from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, dozens of tier 2, 3 and 4 cities are also major target cities. Through the implementation of "One-Hour Drug Delivery", the Company will drive the medical and healthcare service upgrade among tier 3 and 4 cities.
For example, users in minority areas, including Hunan Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture and Hubei Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture can now enjoy the service of "One-Minute Consultation + One-Hour Drug Delivery", enabling local users to receive medical treatment and purchase medicine.
In recent years, driven by the new national urbanization strategy, tier 3 and 4 cities have demonstrated rapid economic development. With increasing population, the market demand for healthcare protection service is also accelerating. In terms of population base, the major target group for the future upgrade of China healthcare industry will definitely be tier 3 and 4 cities with larger population size.
Contrary to the continued economic and population growth of tier 3 and 4 cities, the medical service outlets across these cities are still insufficient to satisfy the needs of residents to conveniently seek medical treatment. Ping An Good Doctor's penetration to low tier markets will cater to the needs of local consumers looking for medical services and help the local pharmacies expand their customer base and scale up. It will also help ease the unbalanced situation that residents living in low tier cities cannot receive as good quality medical services as those living in the big cities. As a result, a more balanced medical resources landscape will be formulated and the medicine-purchasing environment for local residents will be improved.
At present, Ping An Good Doctor has reached strategic cooperation with several nationally well-known chain pharmacy brands, such as Yifeng Pharmacy, Nepstar Drugstore, LBX Pharmacy and Gouda Drugstore, to jointly provide the "One-Minute Consultation + One-Hour Drug Delivery" service. Ping An Good Doctor will continue to establish partnerships with more and more brand pharmacies in the future, striving to build the largest national network of "One-Hour Drug Delivery" with the widest range of pharmaceutical products and provide hundreds of millions of users with convenient services.
About Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited
Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited (the "Company") is a pioneer in the PRC Internet healthcare market and operate the largest Internet healthcare platform in terms of average MAUs and daily average online consultations in 2016.
Through the company's mobile platform launched in April 2015, the company offers online medical and wellness services, such as family doctor services, consumer healthcare services, health mall as well as health management and wellness interaction. As of December 31, 2017, there were 192.8 million registered users, who benefit from access to quality healthcare services at their fingertips. In 2015, 2016 and 2017, average MAUs, calculated as the average of MAUs for each calendar month, reached 5.6 million, 21.8 million and 32.9 million across its platform, respectively.
The mission of the company is to build the largest healthcare ecosystem in the world and promote healthy living empowered by technology. Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited's family doctor services, mobile platform and service provider network make it a vital online portal and a vibrant healthcare ecosystem. Taken together, the breadth and depth of company's user base and user engagement, technological capabilities and network of service providers form a substantial entry barrier for competitors.
