Hon Hai eyes digital healthcare device market in Southeast Asia

Taipei, Feb. 15 (CNA) Taiwan-based manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which has intensified efforts to extend its reach beyond contract production, has set its sights on the Southeast Asian market for digital healthcare devices, a senior company official said Tuesday.

Speaking with reporters, Chiang Chih-hsiung (姜志雄), head of the iPhone assembler's B business group, said the company will use the Taiwan market as a launch pad for digital healthcare device development and is planning to test the waters in the Southeast Asian market in 2023 at the earliest.

Chiang made the comments after Hon Hai signed an agreement with Taiwan Biophotonic Corp. (tBPC) and the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) earlier in the day on the development of a long distance care monitoring platform.

Under the agreement, the three partners are set to collaborate on the building of a digital healthcare ecosystem in Taiwan.

Hon Hai expects to take advantage of its existing strength in information communications technologies to develop digital healthcare devices and aims to create value-added smart medicare hardware gadgets, Chiang said.

Hon Hai has a vision that involves developing a long distance healthcare monitoring platform by integrating its hardware and software expertise as well as the physical and virtual technologies it has mastered, including Apps interfaces and cloud technology-based applications, to help medical personnel monitor patients from a distance, Chiang added.

Before entering the Southeast Asian market in 2023, Hon Hai is expected to conduct a clinical test for the remote monitoring platform lasting about one year, Chiang said, adding the new system will still need to be certified by the health authorities in various markets.

Commenting on its cooperation with Hon Hai and tBPC, Alex Y.M. Peng (彭裕民), executive vice president of ITRI, said the establishment of the Taiwan Integrated Biomedical Industrial Center (TIBIC) by the Ministry of Economic Affairs paved the path for closer ties between the three partners.

The three are expected to conduct a clinical test of the upcoming long distance healthcare monitoring platform in Tucheng Hospital, New Taipei, Peng said.

Negotiations are also being held with Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and several elderly care centers for broader cooperation, in a bid to accelerate the speed at which new devices hit the local market and even enter international markets in the future, Peng added.

Looking ahead, Chiang said Hon Hai will seek further cooperation in developing heartbeat, blood oxygen and blood sugar monitors as well as electrocardiography devices.