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our reporter yan guowen and cao xueping reported from beijing

"haodaifu online", a well-known internet medical platform established 18 years ago, was acquired by ant group.

recently, interactive peak technology (beijing) co., ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "interactive peak") and beijing new medical power technology co., ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "new medical power"), to which good doctor online belongs, have successively changed their equity structure. ant group's subsidiary shanghai yunyan enterprise management consulting co., ltd. has become a shareholder with 100% of the shares of the above two companies of good doctor online.

wang hang, founder of haodaifu online, and lei jun, an investor, have all withdrawn from the list of shareholders. zhang junjie, vice president of alipay and general manager of the digital healthcare division, has become the legal representative of the two companies.

regarding this acquisition, a reporter from china business news contacted good doctor online and ant group on september 14. good doctor online told the reporter: "there is no more news to share at the moment." ant group did not respond to the reporter's interview.

the reporter noticed that at present, the online consultation service of alipay's medical and health section has been connected to haodafu online, wedoctor,ali healththis section also displays the information that "900,000 real doctors have settled in alipay". users can consult doctors on the haodaifu online platform and view historical medical consultation and communication information from the haodaifu online platform.

internet medical companies have always faced the dilemma of difficulty in making profits. as a pioneer in the internet medical industry, good doctor online has always adhered to the internet medical business. however, in the past few years, good doctor online has repeatedly reported layoffs to relieve difficulties. tianyancha data shows that the number of insured people in interactive peak has dropped from 434 in 2017 to 24 in 2023, and the number of insured people in new medical power has dropped from 383 in 2021 to 56 in 2023.

industry pioneer

founded in 2006, haodaifu online is one of the earliest leading internet medical companies in china.

according to official website data, good doctor online has a large number of high-quality doctors. 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 real names on the platform and provide online medical services directly to patients. among these active doctors, 73% are from tertiary hospitals, which has a high degree of authority in medical services. as of september 2024, good doctor online has served more than 89 million patients.

according to public information, haodafu online has received multiple rounds of financing since its establishment.lei junin 2015, it received a round of c financing of 60 million us dollars; in 2017, it received a round of d financing of 200 million us dollars, led by tencent.

according to previous reports of this newspaper, in the past ten years of development, the internet medical industry has mainly gone through several stages, including early exploration, pilot projects in multiple locations, policy breakthroughs, prevention and control promotion, and standardized development.

before 2014, the internet medical industry was still in its early stages of exploration. the popularity of mobile internet has brought internet medical services into thousands of households, but at this stage, internet medical services were still mainly information provision and consulting services, and did not involve serious diagnosis and treatment.

from 2015 to 2017, many places started internet medical trials. in 2018, good doctor online was successfully piloted in yinchuan. the main reason for its success was that it linked internet medical care with the lack of high-end expert resources in western china, and thus won the support of regulators. in 2018, the yinchuan model of internet medical care was fully recognized.

after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, patients' offline medical treatment channels were blocked, and more and more public hospitals opened internet hospitals, and the concept of internet medical care became more popular.

in june and august 2022, the "internet medical treatment supervision rules (trial)" and the "online drug sales supervision and management measures" were successively issued, laying the foundation for the standardized development of internet medical care and pharmaceutical e-commerce. at present, internet medical care has become an important part of my country's medical service system.

however, due to the shortage of high-quality medical resources and the low willingness of domestic patients to pay for medical services, internet medical platforms are prone to service disputes.

layoffs to help

despite many attempts and explorations, good doctor online's business has always been focused on internet medical care, and it insists on "three no's", namely, no selling of drugs, no self-built offline hospitals, and no medical advertising. although the persistence in internet medical care is full of idealism, it also leads to the lack of profitability of good doctor online itself.

in december 2022, wang hang sent an internal letter to all employees of haodaifu online, stating that "they must have the ability to survive."

the internal letter stated that due to the impact of the epidemic and the economic environment, the company needs to immediately adjust its strategy and organizational structure at this stage to enhance the business's risk resistance and meet the challenges that may be faced next.

wang hang said that three things must be done well: first, the company must immediately get rid of its dependence on financing and decisively become a self-sustaining enterprise; second, immediately adjust the focus of work, and quickly transform from focusing on production and research in the start-up period to focusing on market development; third, immediately adjust the organizational structure to adapt to the new work focus, strengthen the company's survival ability, and accelerate the pace of business development.

"in the face of new challenges, the company must have the ability to survive, so i have to announce with regret that the company will begin to implement job adjustments from now on, and some colleagues who once worked with us will leave. i feel deeply uneasy and sorry about this. our colleagues are all very excellent, and it is very difficult and reluctant for me to make such a decision, but we have to bear such losses and pain." wang hang said in an internal letter.

in june 2023, wang hang released the "company's latest situation statement". in the letter, wang hang introduced: "since a series of business adjustments started in december last year, the company's losses have improved rapidly, and it broke even in april. at the same time, the company's business remains benign and healthy, ranking first in the internet medical service industry, with stable service quality and excellent social credibility."

wang hang said: "last year, under the pressure of the capital market, many shareholders of the company proposed to withdraw their investment and demanded redemption from the company. given that the company's cash is insufficient to complete the redemption, in order to protect the interests of shareholders, the management has been working hard to find a new strategic investor with the same value concept for nearly a year, and has made substantial progress and obtained the best solution in the current market. however, under the overall downturn in the capital market, this solution is still difficult to meet the expectations of shareholders."

the change in the number of employees is reflected in the reduction in the number of insured persons. tianyancha data shows that in recent years, the number of insured persons of hudongfeng and xinyiqiangguo, two companies to which haodafu online belongs, has shown a continuous downward trend. from 2017 to 2023, the number of insured persons of hudongfeng was 434, 399, 411, 357, 53, 56, and 24 respectively. from 2021 to 2023, the number of insured persons of xinyiqiangguo was 383, 242, and 56 respectively.

the end is selling medicine?

at present, there are no domestic companies whose main business is internet medical care that have successfully gone public. existing listed companies such as alibaba health (00241.hk), jd health (06618.hk), and ark health (6086.hk) mainly rely on pharmaceutical e-commerce business, while also deploying internet medical care to achieve an ecological closed loop of "drug sales + medical and health services."

medical e-commerce platforms represented by ali health and jd health have gained a leading advantage by relying on massive traffic. in their "drug sales + medical and health services" ecological closed loop, drug sales contribute the vast majority of revenue, while internet medical business revenue accounts for a very small proportion.

according to alibaba health's 2024 financial annual report, during the reporting period, total revenue was 27 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1%; net profit was 883 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 64.6%.

as of march 31, 2024, the annual active users of tmall health platform reached 300 million, and it has served more than 35,000 merchants, a year-on-year increase of 28%. it has cooperated with more than 220,000 practicing physicians, pharmacists and nutritionists to provide users with online health consultation services. during the reporting period, the average daily online consultation volume excluding prescriptions exceeded 11,000 times. the total number of user members of ali health's online self-operated pharmacies reached 77 million.

ali health's main businesses include pharmaceutical e-commerce platform business, pharmaceutical self-operated business, medical health and digital service business, etc. in fiscal year 2024, ali health's pharmaceutical e-commerce platform business revenue was 2.329 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.1%, accounting for 8.63% of the company's total revenue; pharmaceutical self-operated business revenue was 23.739 billion yuan, a slight increase of 0.6% year-on-year, accounting for about 88% of the company's total revenue; medical health and digital service business revenue was 958 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.6%.

in the first half of 2024, jd health's revenue was 28.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.6%; its profit (net profit) was 2.034 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 30.22%.

jd health's main revenue also comes from the sale of medicines and health products. in the first half of 2024, jd health's revenue from the sale of medicines and health products was 23.9 billion yuan, accounting for 84.45% of the company's current revenue. online platform, digital marketing and other service revenue was 4.4 billion yuan, accounting for 15.55%. as of june 30, 2024, the platform had 181 million annual active users in the past 12 months. in the first half of 2024, the average daily online consultation volume exceeded 480,000.

in july 2024, ark health was successfully listed on the hong kong stock exchange. although it claims to be an online chronic disease management platform, in fact, ark health's business is also mainly medical e-commerce. according to the semi-annual report, in the first half of 2024, ark health's total revenue was 1.322 billion yuan, of which the online retail pharmacy business revenue was 673 million yuan, accounting for 50.9%; the comprehensive medical service business revenue was 321 million yuan, accounting for only 24.2%; wholesale, customized content and marketing solutions and other business revenues accounted for about 24.9%.