stuck in the profit problem, haodafu changes hands to ant
2024-09-19
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the rumor that haodafu online was wholly acquired by ant group has finally come to fruition. on september 18, a beijing business daily reporter learned that the operating entity of the internet medical company haodafu online, interactive peak technology (beijing) co., ltd., had a shareholder change recently. the shareholder has been changed to shanghai yunyan enterprise management consulting co., ltd. under ant group, with a shareholding ratio of 100%. haodafu online founder wang hang, lei jun and other shareholders withdrew, and the company's legal person was changed to zhang junjie, vice president of alipay and general manager of the digital medical health division. before this, it is not difficult to see from the founder's statement that profitability issues were the main reason for the acquisition of haodafu online.
nearly 10 billion valuation
haodaifu online still couldn't escape the fate of being acquired.
public information shows that haodaifu online was established in 2006. as one of the leading internet medical platforms in china, haodaifu online has achieved remarkable results in many fields such as hospital/doctor information query, picture and text consultation, telephone consultation, remote video clinic, accurate outpatient appointment, post-diagnosis disease management, family doctors, and popular science of disease knowledge.
as of september 2024, good doctor online has collected information on 940,000 doctors from more than 10,000 regular hospitals in china. among them, 280,000 doctors have registered with their real names on the platform and provide online medical services directly to patients. among these active doctors, 73% are from tertiary hospitals. as of september 2024, good doctor online has served more than 89 million patients.
with the entry of ant group, wang hang, the founder of good doctor online, finally bid farewell to the entrepreneurial stage he had been on for 18 years. previously, with the support of xiaomi's lei jun, ceyuan ventures, tencent, dcm ventures, zhixin capital, chongde investment and other investors, good doctor online had more than 1,000 employees at its peak and was valued at nearly 10 billion yuan.
but the highlight moment is always short-lived. in the past period of time, there have been constant rumors in the industry that good doctor online is seeking mergers and acquisitions. as early as august 2023, there were market news that internet giants wanted to acquire good doctor online. baidu, jd health and others took the initiative to contact good doctor online, but due to factors such as price, business integration, and value matching, they did not ultimately reach a cooperation agreement.
in april this year, the market once again heard that ali health was negotiating with haodaifu online on the acquisition, and the two sides had made substantial breakthroughs in the negotiations on some key issues. the two sides had already had contact and negotiations about half a year before. by august, the negotiating party had changed from ali health to ant group.
now, the industrial and commercial changes have taken place in the operating entity of haodaifu online, which also means that the above-mentioned acquisition has turned from rumor into reality.
so far, neither party has announced the details of the transaction. beijing business daily reporters also contacted ant group and good doctor online to learn about the relevant situation, and both parties responded that "no further information has been disclosed yet."
behind the change of ownership
according to zhao heng, founder of latitudehealth, a medical strategic consulting company, ant group's acquisition of good doctor online is aimed at strengthening its strength in the field of medical services. previously, ant group's core business was concentrated in the payment field, and there were certain deficiencies in follow-up services. at the same time, other financial institutions have regarded medical services as a key competitive advantage.
other industry insiders pointed out that the acquisition of haodaifu online and its integration into alipay's medical and health division means that haodaifu online will become part of ant group's big health ecosystem, which further demonstrates ant group's emphasis on online medical business.
along with the rumors of acquisition, haodafu online has repeatedly laid off employees in recent years. in 2016, haodafu online was exposed to be laying off employees on a large scale, and the layoff ratio may reach 50%. if the overall layoff rate is 50%, only 400 of the 800 employees of haodafu online will be left. at that time, haodafu online responded that the news was not true and it was just a normal personnel adjustment.
in december 2022, haodafu online announced its transformation. in an open letter within the company, wang hang stated that haodafu online is about to adjust its strategy and organizational structure. the specific direction is to transform from focusing on production and research in the start-up period to market development. it hopes to strengthen the business's risk resistance, get rid of its dependence on financing, and become a self-sustaining enterprise.
in june of the following year, wang hang issued an internal "latest company situation statement", stating that since a series of business adjustments began in december 2022, the company's losses have improved rapidly, but faced with huge pressure from shareholders to withdraw capital and demand redemption, the adjustment plan did not meet expectations. after the recent board meeting, the company's strategy will be to cut offline heavy businesses and teams and switch to internet expansion methods.
problems to be solved
it is not difficult to see from the founder’s statement that profitability issue is the main reason why haodaifu online was acquired.
in october 2019, wang hang admitted in an interview that "haodaifu online is still in the first stage of commercial exploration, that is, polishing each product and service and pricing them, and is far from achieving large-scale profitability."
commercial exploration is still in the first stage, which is related to the "three no principles" of good doctor online. good doctor online adheres to the "three nos": no profit from drugs, no self-built offline hospitals, and no medical advertising business. in wang hang's plan, he always adheres to the priority of social value, insists on pursuing a more benign, long-term, and healthier business model, and refuses to pursue a model that pursues short-term profits but may harm the interests of patients.
but reality will not pay for sentiment, and profitability is always the core challenge of business development.
after years of development, internet medical platforms have formed two mainstream business paths: "consultation" and "selling medicine". among them, companies represented by jd health and ali health belong to the former, which are mainly engaged in medical e-commerce and are the first to achieve profitability; while companies represented by good doctor online and chunyu doctor belong to the latter, which focus on improving the quality of medical services and constantly explore business models.
so far, almost all “consulting” companies have failed to achieve self-sustaining revenue. for example, ping an good doctor, the first listed unicorn under ping an group, has accumulated losses of more than 7 billion yuan in ten years, and only turned losses into profits in the first half of this year due to reduced cost investment.
on the other hand, taking ali health as an example, in fiscal year 2024, ali health's annual revenue was 27.026 billion yuan, a slight increase of 1% year-on-year; net profit was 880 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 64.6%; adjusted net profit was 1.43 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 90.8%.
beijing business daily reporter wang yinhao
(source: beijing business daily)
