ZTE Corp, China's biggest public telecommunications equipment maker, said yesterday it will expand into information technology services catering to the health care of aged people in the country because of the market's huge growth potential.
ZTE has set up Shanghai-based ZTE Health Science & Technology Co with a registered capital of 50 million yuan (US$8 million).
The revenue in the health care market in China is expected to hit 13 trillion yuan in 2020, up from about 4 trillion yuan annually now, He Shiyou, chairman and president of ZTE Health, said during an interview in Shanghai, citing figures from research firms.
"It's an Internet Plus strategy for ZTE in a promising market segment," He said yesterday.
By cooperating with local governments and communities, ZTE Health offers aged people a health care platform and software as well as smart devices designed for them. The devices include handsets for one-click emergency call and GPS location features. ZTE Health aims to provide an online platform using cloud computing and data analysis technologies.
More than 210 million people are aged 60 and above in China, accounting for 15 percent of the total population, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. In Shanghai, the figure is about 28 percent, which creates an urgent demand for the city to offer health care services to them through new technologies.
ZTE Health, which has started services in some communities in the Pudong New Area, plans to offer Internet-based health care services in 36 communities there to cover the whole region by the end of this year.
ZTE Health's services are also available in the Netherlands and Sweden, according to He.
