While the Indian medical equipment industry is struggling to grow and reduce our dependency on imports, China, a relatively newcomer in the global medical equipment market since the start of this century, has started conquering the global med-tech market dominated by the US and European companies.
If China accounted for less than 3% of global trade in med-tech products in 2000, its share in global med-tech trade surged to 12.4% by 2021, amounting to nearly $40 billion. By the end of 2023, China had more than 32,000 medical device manufacturers, generating $160 billion revenue. This growth is driven by government initiatives, strong domestic demand, and rising innovation within the country’s healthcare sector, says a Praxis Global Alliance research report. In 2024, China exported $11.4 billion of medical instruments, and the main destinations were the United States ($2.5 billion), Japan ($649 million), Germany ($600 million), Brazil ($452 million), and India ($447 million).
As against this, India, which imports 70-80% of its medical equipment requirements from countries such as the US, China and Germany, imported med-tech worth $8.1 billion in FY24. With a domestic industry mainly producing low-end technology medical devices, exports were worth only $3.7 billion in FY24. The market size of the medical devices sector in India was $11 billion (approximately ₹90,000 crore) in 2020, and its share in the global medical device market was only 1.5%.
The Chinese success stems from a powerful combination of strategic and strong government support, aggressive R&D investment, strong technological capabilities, and calculated global expansion, say experts.
