The firm Mindray (Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd.), the largest Chinese manufacturer of the medical equipment, created a sensation on the Russian Us-scanners market!

1. Mindray’s success

The firm Mindray (Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd.), the largest Chinese manufacturer of the medical equipment, created a sensation on the Russian Us-scanners market.

By the results of the first half of 2011, Mindray is ahead of the famous Japanese manufacturers – Aloka Co. Ltd. and Hitachi Medical Corporation – in the volume of Us-scanners’ export to Russia. Within half a year, Mindray supplied more Us-scanners to Russia in the value terms than Aloka and Hitachi all together including the joint company Hitachi Aloka Medical Ltd. and also more than the firm Siemens. We can suppose with a large share of certainty that at the present time Mindray is on the first place by the number of Us-scanners supplied to Russia, although it still lags behind such manufacturers as General Electric, Toshiba and Philips in supplies in the value terms. Mindray’s success can be explained by the perfectly balanced price-quality ratio of the supplied scanners and also by Mindray’s effective policy in promotion of its product on the Russian market.

2. Us-scanners import statistics

In comparison with the first half of the last year, the volume of supplies of Mindray’s scanners to Russia increased 1,5 times in the value terms. Despite such considerable growth, the slowing of the pace of Mindray’s supplies can be stated. Within the last several years we have seen the double growth of the volume of supplies. Such slowing can be explained by the deceleration by the rather increased volume of supplies and also by missing of the expensive high-class scanners in Mindray’s line. The annual double increase in future is possible only in case of appearance of the more high class scanners in Mindray’s Us-scanners line.
The scanner with the color Doppler DC-3 still remains the leader of the sales of Mindray Us-scanners sales supplied by OOO “Medic-Service”. There is a tendency of the increase of color scanners supplies and the decrease of black-white scanners. The total number of the color DC-3 and DC-7 considerable exceeds the total number of the black-white DP-6600 and DP-6900. A new model of the portable B/W scanner Mindray DP-50 was registered in the middle of this year. The fine user characteristics of this scanner, such as 15-inch LC monitor, two connectors for sensors, the in-built accumulator, 7,5 kg weight and other parameters and the original functions must be of interest for the Russia user. The appearance of such apparatus in the line of B/W scanners will strengthen more Mindray’s position as the world leader in the black-white scanners production.

In the first half of 2011, Russia imported Us-scanners for the amount about US$70 mln in total. The leader of sales in the value terms is the firm General Electric which supplied its scenners to Russia from its plants in USA, Japan, China, India and other countries. The share of GE on the Russian ultra-sound scanners market is about 17% that is lower than the last years when the share of GE reached 30% and higher. Close to GE approached the firm Toshiba. The merger of the firms Aloka and Hitachi, which in past were ahead of the firm Mindray in the value terms of scanners supplies, apparently had a negative impact on their position on the Russian market.

3. Rating of suppliers

The rating of the countries of origin of Us-scanners supplied to Russia is as follows:
1. Japan - 23%
2. Korea - 19%
3. USA - 19%
4. China - 16%

The difference in the volume of supplies from the stated countries is small (from US$11mln till US$16mln). For comparison, in 1996 the share of the Japanese ultra-sound scanners was 47% in the total share of the scanners supplies to Russia.
The following manufacturers supplied their scanners from Japan in 2011:

• Toshiba Medical Systems Corp
• GE Healthcare Japan Corp.
• Hitachi Medical Corp.
• Aloka Co. Ltd.
• Honda Electronics Co., Ltd.

Medison, GE and Siemens supplied their ultrasound scanners from Korea.

The rating of the originally Chinese manufacturers is the following:

• Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Sonoscape Company Ltd.
• Shenzhen Well D Medical Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Shantou Institute of Ultrasonic Instrument
• Edan Instruments, Inc.
• Chison Medical Imaging Co., Ltd.
• Shenzhen Biocare Electronics Co., Ltd.

4. Brief characteristics of the Japanese manufacturers Aloka and Hitachi

Aloka (Aloka Co., Ltd.) was established in January 1950. The firm had 1150 employees as of March 31, 2011. The share capital was Yen 6,5 bln (about US$74 mln), sales – Yen 41,6 bln (US$472 mln). According to some estimates, in the 70s and 80s of the last century the park of Us-scanners of the USSR at 70-80% consisted of Aloka scanners. The firm has an extended network of dealers and the service centers in the CIS countries: 15 dealer’s centers in the CIS, out of them 6 in Russia. The share of Aloka ultrasound scanners in the Russian import has declined steadily during the last years as follows: from 18% in 2006-2007 till 4% last year.

Hitachi Medical (Hitachi Medical Corporation) was established in May 1949 under the name Higasi-Nippon Senikikai Kabusiki Kaisya. The firm’s capital was Yen 13,9 bln as of March 2011. The number of employees – 5402 (total). The firm is producing ultrasound scanners, MRI and CT tomographs as well as X-ray and other equipment. Hitachi registered its first ultrasound scanners (EUB-200 and EUB-240) in Russia in 1986. Hitachi is supplying its product to more than 150 countries in the world. The corporation has its plants in the cities of Kashiwa and Osaka and also 40 offices in Japan and 16 offices abroad. The engineers of OOO “Medic-Service” have got training at Kashiwa plant.

The new company Hitachi Aloka Medical Ltd. was established on April 1, 2011 as a result of the merger of two companies – Aloka and Hitachi Medical after five years of close technical cooperation. As a result of the merger, Aloka became a 100% subsidiary of Hitachi Medical Corporation along with the subsidiary Hitachi Medical Computer Systems Inc. in Japan. Hitachi also has its subsidiaries abroad, particularly in the USA, Europe and China. The merged company became the third largest company in the world ultrasound scanners production after General Electric and Philips. Prior to the merger, the share of the world market of Aloka scanners was estimated at 7% and of Hitachi – 4,3%.