The impressive "silver economy"

Image source @ Visual China

Text | Financial external reference

A number of data show that the mainland silver economy will enter a stage of rapid growth, and the elderly live e-commerce, health care, intelligent software and hardware and other industries will usher in a new climax of development.

In 2021, the number of people aged 60 and above was 264 million, accounting for 18.7%, an increase of 5.44 percentage points over 2010, a step away from deep aging. In addition, according to CRIC, the scale of the pension industry will exceed 9 trillion yuan in 2022 and 12 trillion yuan in 2025.

The increasing number of elderly people in China and the surge in demand for life services have brought opportunities to Internet entrepreneurs. In life, we can also feel that services for the elderly have penetrated all aspects of life, intelligent health care, age-appropriate transformation, health care products, elderly communities, physiotherapy, live e-commerce for the elderly, like mushrooms.

The silver-haired economy ushered in the spring

In the domestic market, the "digital divide" for the elderly is a clichéd problem, the state attaches great importance to it, capital is eyeing the tiger, consumer demand has soared, and the silver economy has ushered in a new spring under various conditions.

At the policy level, the state has launched many old-age service goals and plans, and cities have also responded to the national call to accelerate the establishment and improvement of a more intelligent old-age ecosystem. Under the impetus of the policy, the consumption potential of the elderly has been further activated, laying the foundation for the construction of the pension industry.

It is reported that the release of the national plan and the outline of the long-term goals for 2035, actively respond to the aging of the population officially entered the national strategy, improved the population service system with the focus of "one old and one small", and developed a series of goals such as inclusive childcare and basic old-age service system were clearly included in the outline of the "14th Five-Year Plan".

At the demand level, with the passage of time and the advancement of technology, the needs of the elderly such as medical treatment, health, entertainment, and shopping have become diversified, and the scale of the pension industry has been expanding.

According to online public data, it is expected that in 2022, the scale of the pension industry will exceed 9 trillion yuan, and 12 trillion yuan will be achieved in 2025. Based on the macro and industrial data related to the pension from 2013 to 2020, combined with the dynamic model, it is predicted that the scale of the pension industry in the future will reach 9 trillion yuan in 2022, and will exceed 12 trillion yuan and 20 trillion yuan in 2025 and 2030, respectively.

At the capital level, the pension industry has a huge user demand and good policy environment and technical conditions, just like the "gold mine" in the eyes of capital, more and more enterprises fighting in the pension industry, and fierce competition in the subdivision field.

According to the report "New Opportunities in the Era of Great Health: Preconceived Thinking on Future Life" jointly released by Tianyancha and Baidu Finance, the pension industry has raised 6 billion yuan in the past five years, and the number of pension-related enterprises has continued to increase, totaling more than 230,000; the number of smart pension enterprises has reached more than 5,300, and more than 7 adults are willing to use smart pension equipment in their future lives.

It should be noted that the pension industry is not independent of each life service industry, but belongs to the unique segment of the life service industry, that is to say, the segments of e-commerce, medical health, rehabilitation nursing, intelligent hardware and other segments in our lives can consider elderly consumers.

Elderly live broadcast unexpected fires

I thought that the live broadcast market was the world of young people, but I did not think that the elderly also supported a piece of the sky in the field of live streaming with goods.

Whether it is Douyin, Kuaishou or other live broadcast platforms, there are not a few elderly people with goods, and the efficiency of the elderly with goods is higher than that of ordinary waist or tail anchors. For example: Northeast Grandma "I am Grandma Tian", "64-year-old uncle Zhao Xueliang", "Grandma Wang who only wears high heels", "Grandma Qinba".

According to public online data, Grandma Wang, who has more than 15 million fans on Douyin, has set a record of more than 5.37 million live streaming results in a single live broadcast; "I am Grandma Tian", who has 33.379 million fans on Douyin, has also achieved sales of 1.5 million in a live debut.

Interestingly, the elderly have also learned to "organize live broadcasts" and have set up a large-scale and organized learning and training system for cultivating elderly anchors.

In August 2021, Ningxia's "Silver Hair Elderly Group" live-streamed agricultural products with goods, which was hot. This "Silver Hair Live Broadcast Group" is composed of more than ten villagers in Hongde Village, Ningxia, with an average age of up to 64 years old, mainly singing and dancing in the live broadcast room to introduce agricultural products, helping hometown agricultural products to "go out of the village and into the city".

From the independent anchors of the elderly and the live broadcast team of the elderly, to the formation of MAC institutions that cultivate the anchors of the elderly, the live broadcast of the elderly with goods has become a mature industrial chain, and the development of this industrial chain is supported by more and more elderly people who have touched the network.

On the one hand, under the guidance and training of children or universities for the elderly, the elderly have the ability to independently complete the online shopping process and are the new main force of online shopping. According to the "Taobao Live 2021 Annual Report", the number of Taobao live broadcast users before 1970 increased by 18% in 2020 compared with the previous year.

On the other hand, the exploration of live broadcasting, short videos and content platforms for live streaming with goods provides convenience for the elderly to live stream with goods, and most platforms have specially launched simpler, more convenient and faster service methods for the needs of the elderly, which is convenient for the elderly to communicate and pay.

Unsatisfactory, the barbaric growth of the elderly live streaming market has brought a lot of chaos. First, most elderly anchors are accustomed to using "selling miserable people" to make consumers feel dissatisfied. Second, there are not a few bad anchors in the market who falsely publicize and dump fake and shoddy goods against the elderly, infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of elderly consumers.

According to the survey data of Nandu Big Data Research Institute, about 20% of the elderly surveyed said that they had not encountered suspected fraud. 46% of the elderly have encountered the fraud of impersonating "old friends", 42% of the elderly have encountered online shopping, drug (health product) fraud, and 33% of the elderly have encountered false lottery type fraud.

There is no doubt that in the future, more elderly people will settle in the live broadcast platform to contribute to the live broadcasting industry for the elderly, and market supervision should also keep up with the pace of market development and boost the development of the silver economy.

Long-term demand for health care is stable

Health care for the elderly is a routine service and an important pillar of the elderly care industry. With the development of the Internet, big data and artificial intelligence technology, the digitalization and intelligent upgrading of home care and home care services have become the development trend of the industry.

Home care not only improves the utilization rate of medical care resources, but also greatly alleviates the problem of the elderly going out for medical treatment, and ordinary medical care can also obtain more benefits through door-to-door service. And the market prospects are broad, Internet giants, traditional pension service institutions, home care professional platforms, have launched home care services.

The representatives of Internet giants are Ali Health and JD Health. In August 2020, Jingdong Health launched the family doctor service; in May 2021, Alibaba Health launched the "Inch Grass Heart" service, both of which are similar in model, both are cooperating with professional institutions to implement the "online appointment offline service" method, providing services including home injections, door-to-door drug exchange, puerperal care, pressure ulcer care and so on.

The advantages of Internet giants entering the game are obvious, one is traffic, the other is technology, and the third is resources. Compared with other platforms, JD Health and Ali Health can use the advantages of traffic and resources to quickly open the market and occupy a favorable position, the disadvantage is that the two do not directly provide services, and it is difficult to control the quality of service.

Representatives of home nursing professional institutions include Xiaobai home care, gold medal nurses, etc., based on internet technology Xiaobai home care, gold medal nurses to establish an online order, offline service "Internet + nursing service" model, to provide the elderly with chronic disease management, rehabilitation nursing, special nursing and other types of professional services.

Different from the Jingdong Health and Ali Health platform models, Xiaobai Home Care and Gold Medal Nurses are more focused on the elderly service and "experience it themselves". They work with local public hospitals to provide customized care services to patients and track feedback over time, and professional and efficient service levels are the strengths of vertical professional institutions.

Representatives of comprehensive old-age service institutions include Yuexiu Yinxing and Longzhen Pension. As the "originator" of the pension industry, Yuexiu Yinxing and Longzhen Pension have superior offline scene resources and years of accumulated service experience for the elderly, so in the field of health care services, there is a place for traditional pension service institutions.

In short, driven by the technology of Ali and Jingdong Internet giants, the service level of Xiaobai home nursing and gold medal nurse home nursing professional institutions, and the experience of Yuexiu Yinxing and Longzhen comprehensive pension service institutions, the efficiency of the elderly health care service industry will be further improved, and the scale of the industry will also be on the next level.

When intelligent software and hardware are "suitable for aging"

Ageing is a hot word in the Internet industry.

In April 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice requiring websites and apps to undergo "age-appropriate" and barrier-free modifications by the end of September 2021 – including the use of larger fonts and banned ad plugins. Driven by policies, shopping, chat, taxi, news and other mobile phone software have launched relevant ageing models.

Mainstream Internet products including the elderly in the target user is an important milestone in the Internet industry. With the blessing of Internet companies, the aging transformation of mainstream software has been accelerating, which has greatly stimulated the online consumption of the elderly.

According to the data of Nandu Big Data Research Institute, today's mobile software such as Toutiao, UC, Baidu, Taobao, Suning Tesco, Pinduoduo and other e-commerce software have successively completed the aging transformation of APP. As of August 15, 2021, at least 30 apps have launched ageing versions with clearer meanings such as "big character mode", "care version" and "elder version" through different forms.

In the field of smart hardware, there are also a number of "age-appropriate" products.

First, health management has always been the just need of elderly consumers, and intelligent health detection instruments are indispensable equipment for health management, and it can be found that the market common sphygmomanometers, blood glucose meters, electrocardiograms, oximeters and other intelligent health monitoring equipment, the main consumers are the elderly.

Second, the development of smart technology has promoted the upgrading of smart home products, as well as the popularity of smart wearable products, barrier-free smart bathing machines, smart beds, smart rail elevator chairs, smart wheelchairs and other new products developed for the elderly in an endless stream, smart bracelets, smart watches and other wearable devices are also under the cultivation of Huawei, Huami, Microgram wearable device related companies, to achieve a better vision of serving the elderly.

Of course, whether it is software or hardware, serving the elderly is not an easy task. The upgrade of smart software and hardware is difficult to achieve overnight, because the market needs a long period of polishing and trial and error to improve the service level of the elderly step by step. However, it is certain that as long as the relevant enterprises work tirelessly, they will definitely get a good result in the future.

brief summary

Whether it is driven by policies or a keen sense of investment, the layout of the elderly track is already a must for Internet giants and vertical unicorns.

It can be predicted that the silver economy will usher in a new spring, and related enterprises can achieve considerable growth around the development of food, clothing, housing and entertainment for the elderly consumption. The elderly group that was ignored by the Internet industry in the past suddenly became a "target user", and some companies reacted quickly to occupy a favorable position, and some companies lost the opportunity to grind and rub.