"Xiaomi" in laser medical beauty, Chinese new products are concentrated in the market (2)
The laser medical equipment industry is a technology-intensive industry that integrates multiple disciplines. In addition to safety considerations, the effectiveness, accuracy and long-term reliability of the product must also be guaranteed. There are very high technical requirements in the development of devices such as lasers and strong light generators, precise detection and output control of photoelectric energy, design of human-computer interaction software systems, and integrated system integration.
"There is a big difference between being able to put together a product and being able to make a good product." Xia Yuqing said that it is not particularly difficult to build a picosecond laser, but if you want to make significant differentiated advantages in core energy control, optical design, etc., you need to invest more.
Liu Shuai frankly said that the demand for the medical beauty market is endless, and beauty is a very comprehensive and three-dimensional concept; but there are not many types of laser products at present, and the problems that can be solved are also limited. "If you want to better fill the gap in clinical treatment, 'copying' is definitely not enough. You should innovate and develop effective treatment equipment for a certain subdivided treatment field. For example, effective treatment for melasma requires a new device that has not yet appeared globally."
Xia Yuqing believes that the medical beauty market is in a state of shock and the demand for equipment is differentiating. In the past, medical beauty institutions promoted low-price drainage in large quantities, but in the past two years, they have gradually realized that this model is unsustainable. What patients need is effective comprehensive delivery, which includes the professional judgment of doctors, suggestions on treatment parameters, etc. Equipment is only a small part of ensuring the delivery effect. "The increase in compliant products has given doctors and institutions more choices, but it does not mean that the ability to deliver results will be leapfrogged. All clinical effect delivery depends on the professional operation of medical staff, rather than pure concept hype." Therefore, in his opinion, Chinese laser medical beauty equipment needs to break away from the existing thinking of benchmarking mainstream products, understand the personalized needs of Chinese patients and doctors more deeply, and develop products that are highly matched with them; specifically, it can start from the following three aspects. First, launch more "lightweight" and more cost-effective products in combination with actual scenarios. As mentioned in the previous article, the price of picosecond laser is around 400,000 to 500,000 yuan. According to analysis, this number may continue to fall. In the short term, low prices are an effective means to quickly seize the market, but in the long run, "rolling" low prices is not a sustainable way out, and low prices are not completely equivalent to cost-effectiveness. To achieve high cost-effectiveness, we can try to give up some peak parameters that can only reflect the technical content but have small market demand, and find a lower-cost technical implementation path. Reducing product costs while focusing on the actual needs of users and lowering the operating threshold may be a more efficient way to break through. "For example, picosecond lasers are widely used in the United States to remove tattoos, while the Chinese market has little demand for this, and most of them are used for whitening and freckle removal projects; then, can the corresponding functional parameters be abandoned?"
Second, create a comprehensive energy platform to better meet the needs of small and medium-sized medical beauty institutions, doctor clinics and "photoelectric supermarkets". That is, through an integrated multi-functional treatment platform, a variety of skin problems can be treated. At present, there is still a gap in the comprehensive energy platform of products, which is a major market potential in the future.
Third, accelerate the digitalization process of medical beauty. It is of great significance for medical beauty institutions to use digital technology to carry out standardized management and improve marketing efficiency, especially for small and medium-sized medical beauty institutions, but the reality is that the degree of digitization in the field of medical beauty is extremely low. The advantage of equipment manufacturers is that they can use a large amount of treatment data to build a digital system and provide institutions with a comprehensive solution of products + systems, rather than just equipment suppliers.
In fact, in any field, striving to be the first product in a niche field and striving to be a global innovation is the idea of first establishing product and brand awareness, gaining first-mover advantage, and then enhancing competitiveness. Taking the ultrasonic medical beauty project as an example, Peninsula Medical launched the first "ultrasonic cannon" product and carried out a large amount of continuous market promotion. Since then, more Chinese products have followed up. Although there are still bottlenecks in the approval and supervision of ultrasonic cannons, it is certain that Peninsula ultrasonic cannons do have a prominent advantage in the market. For laser medical beauty, China has achieved the accumulation of technology and products through benchmarking and following. Next, it is time to consider more competitive innovative products.
