Text: Crescent Moon
With the intensification of environmental noise and the acceleration of population aging, the number of hearing losses worldwide is increasing. The Uk Medical Research Council Hearing Research Association estimates that by 2005, the total number of people with global hearing loss above 25 decibels will exceed 560 million. And according to the second national sample survey of disabled people, the number of hearing impairments in the mainland ranks first among all kinds of disabled people, reaching 27.8 million, of which more than 800,000 children aged 0-6 are more than 800,000.
In this context, the market size of hearing aids is also expanding. According to data released by the China Industry Research Network, the global market size is expected to reach 8.33 billion US dollars by 2025, but the infrastructure and professional service personnel related to hearing impairment are far behind the needs of the group. According to statistics, there are only about 10,000 professional service personnel for hearing impairment in the mainland, and the application of hearing aids is less than 5%, which means that there is a huge gap in China's hearing aid market.
But it is worth noting that in the past 20 years, the mainland hearing aid market has been monopolized by foreign giants. Germany's Siemens, Switzerland's Fengli, Denmark's hearing, Odicon and Resonic, the United States Stark, 6 European and American companies together, directly grasped more than 90% of the mainland high-end hearing aid market, and the mainland more than 8,000 offline hearing aid stores, most of which are the stores of these companies.
It is worth mentioning that the price of foreign hearing aids is not expensive, generally in 2000-5000 yuan. Even if it is more expensive, it can rarely exceed 10,000 yuan. But these companies in the Chinese market after the crazy increase in the price of hearing aids, a product in Japan, South Korea and other places only sold for 2,000 US dollars, in the Chinese hearing aid market but sold for 50,000 yuan, and even a hearing aid can rise to more than 150%.
Cochlear implants that help hearing-impaired people, as well as hearing aids, are no exception. According to media reports, in the cochlear implant market, the Australian company Collier alone has won more than 70% of the market share in China. In other words, if about 28 million people in China want to improve their hearing, the dominance is controlled by Western giants.
This "cutting leeks" behavior has continued to develop in the Chinese market and gradually formed a polarization trend. First, the hearing impaired people with limited economic conditions are discouraged from "price", and capital has shattered their dream of touching the world of sound. Second, consumers blindly trust foreign brands and still buy this malicious price increase, resulting in more rampant capital power and falling into a vicious circle.
And now the domestic imported hearing aids are almost a price per year, desperately rising. According to data analysis, the price of hearing aids will increase by one to two percent every year. It is precisely because of such a high price that the hearing aid wear rate in the mainland is quite low. Seeing this, everyone must wonder why foreign companies sell hearing aid products so expensive, but they can still absorb gold in the Chinese market?
The first reason is that foreign brands are also good at hyping up concepts. The so-called "iterative upgrade", carried out every two years, once the "upgrade", the domestic selling price will rise by at least 10%, and the brand premium is quite serious. The subconscious of domestic consumers generally believes that the quality of imported hearing aid products is better, coupled with the continuous technical iterative upgrading of hearing aid products by foreign-funded enterprises, imported hearing aids are more favored.
Secondly, the "core technology" of hearing aids is in the hands of Westerners. It should be known that the core technology of hearing aids is chips, because the powerful chip computing power can suppress noise and enhance the speech output capability of hearing aids according to different external environments. Western companies are relatively perfect in the chip supply chain, which is more conducive to the development of hearing aids for companies such as Fengli, Siemens, and Stark.
On the contrary, the core technology of China's hearing aid products is still "stuck", and most of the parts for the production of hearing aids, such as chips, microphones, and receivers, are in the hands of Western giants. Because of this, the development of the domestic hearing aid market is not optimistic. At present, domestic hearing aids still attract consumers with "low prices", most of which are priced between 99 yuan and 700 yuan, after all, less than 5% of the hearing aid wearing rate shows that the mainland can not afford to buy high-priced imported hearing aids.
However, it is impossible to "wander" in the low-end market all the time, and for the "hard bones" of core technologies, Chinese companies have been focusing on overcoming difficulties. Yu Shihu, founder of Xinsheng Technology, the first brand of domestic hearing aids, said that in recent years, the localization of the core components of hearing aids has started, and domestic suppliers have appeared high-sensitivity microphones, receivers and low-power voice amplification integrated circuits." Among them, Jinhao Medical, as a large-scale enterprise in the domestic hearing aid enterprises, has a particularly prominent performance.
In addition, Xiaomi also has a layout in the field of hearing aids - into the main research and development of hearing aids, chip design, production and sales. In the past two years, Zhiting Technology has also been developing independent chips, trying to localize high-end hearing aids and reduce the price of domestic high-end hearing aids. It is believed that with the support of capital, the hearing aid industry in the mainland can develop better and better.
And in recent days, Apple released a high-end headset airpods pro, has enhanced voice clarity and volume of the "dialogue promotion" function, as to whether airpods can really become hearing aids for the hearing impaired, it is worth everyone's expectations.