By Xie Fang
Alihealth.com, the healthcare platform of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, announced Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with Alibaba to take over the health and medical services from Alibaba’s online shopping platform, Tmall.com.
According to the announcement, Alihealth.com will purchase those businesses by issuing a total of 1.828 billion shares worth around HKD 10.6 billion to Tmall.com. The businesses involved include, among others, the sale of medical devices, dietary supplements as well as medical and healthcare services.
The announcement disclosed that as of the end of March this year, the total transaction volume of those products and services on Tmall.com had reached over RMB 20.56 billion. What’s more, the businesses had attracted 85.5 million buyers and over 3,300 retailers to Tmall.com.
Alihealth.com hopes that the purchase of these businesses can help it achieve a stable and sustainable revenue growth. As shown by its financial report for 2017, the company saw its operating revenue grew more than sevenfold with its gross profit tripling last year.
In addition, the company’s online shop had accumulated more than 15 million consumers since its launch a year ago. The number of active users of its health management App named “My Health” has also hit 28 million.
The takeover deal was also encouraged by the Chinese authorities which showed its support for medical device retail through third-party platforms by issuing rules for the online sale of medical devices last December.
Meanwhile, China’s online healthcare market is also growing rapidly with more and more Chinese consumers willing to buy medical and health products online. The transaction volume of the healthcare section of Tmall.com exceeded the mark of RMB 100 million only three minutes after the beginning of the so-called “Single’s Day” last year.
