ByteDance, which is vigorous and golden, failed to beat as scheduled in the medical field this time.
Recently, it was reported that ByteDance's wholly-owned Baike Famous Medical Network in 2020 has ceased operation; Almost all of the original 5 co-founders and original team of Encyclopedia Famous Doctor Network have left, and only a few personnel are still working in the byte system, participating in the review of Douyin medical content.
In this way, the Encyclopedia Famous Doctor Network, which was acquired at a cost of 500 million yuan, has now become a simple text page. Yiou Health has called the company several times, but no one has answered.
Screenshot from: Bing.
ByteDance, which was already late in the medical game, had to stop expanding under the cold winter. As early as the beginning of 2023, the Xiaohe Health app was caught in the closed Rashomon. Initially, it carried almost all the imagination of the outside world about ByteDance's medical health, led by Wu Haifeng, the former vice president, the configuration was not luxurious, plus hundreds of millions of traffic tilts, but after some attempts, it was finally educated by the slow heat and seriousness of the medical industry.
Since the sudden rise of 2020, Internet medical care is experiencing a bitter ebb period. When the prospect of medical science popularization and ** consultation became more and more blurred, ByteDance finally walked into the comfort zone of "selling medicine" with its peers.
On January 4, 2024, Douyin e-commerce publicly launched two prescription drug-related announcements, namely the "Prescription Drug Management Standards" and the "List of Prescription Drug Access Brands". It expands the range of drugs to prescription drugs in the form of targeted invitations.
When Internet medical treatment wakes up from a dream, how should ByteDance explore? What are the dilemmas of the BAT manufacturers?
Medical science popularization is the first son of ByteDance.
In 2020, due to a sudden public health emergency, the popularity of Internet medical care was pushed to its peak, and the market size expanded to 196.1 billion yuan. The popularization of medical knowledge has become the first level for big factories to attack cities and seize land. The samples of the health medical dictionary and the Tencent medical dictionary are in front, and ByteDance is also aiming at the encyclopedia famous medical network.
As the only encyclopedia famous doctor designated by the "National Health Commission's Authoritative Medical Science Popularization Project", the quality and professionalism are not far behind. In May of that year, ByteDance, which has deep pockets, completed the wholly-owned acquisition of the medical science knowledge platform Encyclopedia Famous Doctor Network with 500 million yuan, and sounded the clarion call to announce its entry into medical treatment in a high-profile manner.
Immediately afterwards, ByteDance acquired the Internet consultation company Zero24. It has 7 first-level disciplines and 1 remote diagnosis and treatment center, and claims to be the first Internet hospital to join the Chinese Hospital Association, and is also a comprehensive Internet hospital certified by the National Health Commission.
It is worth mentioning that this company was co-founded by Wu Haifeng, the former vice president, and Sun Wenyu, the former executive director. Because of this acquisition, Wu Haifeng's team joined ByteDance and gradually established the Xiaohe medical brand.
At that time, the positioning of Xiaohe was to attribute all the medical and health sectors in the byte system to Xiaohe, and all new ** platforms under the system were used as traffic entrances, and Xiaohe provided medical content and services. Some industry insiders pointed out in an interview with **.
The establishment of Xiaohe also announced Byte's official entry into the Internet medical industry. Although only the sharp corners are exposed, ByteDance's actions also make people feel the wealth of the big manufacturers.
Along the line of "content + online consultation + offline service", ByteDance has successively invested in companies such as Songuo Medical, Sanban, Good Mood, Am-China Yihe, and Hongda AiriIn one fell swoop, he stepped into the three major specialty fields of psychology, obstetrics and gynecology, and oncology. In addition, the investment areas also cover AI pharmaceuticals, medical devices, synthetic biology, colonoscopy AI-assisted diagnosis, oral care, medical testing, etc.
After a lively self-development, acquisition, and integration, Xiaohe's figure has almost penetrated into all aspects of online medical knowledge popularization, consultation, and offline diagnosis and treatment services. Hundreds of millions of capital investment and huge byte traffic support have ignited people's infinite imagination of Xiaohe's health.
It's a pity that Bai Fumei, the Internet medical treatment, has not developed as well as expected since then.
Yiou Health Inquiry,The amount of Xiaohe Health app iPhone in 2023 will be about 489064, and the daily activity will be aboutoneHovering in the hundreds of thousands to millions range, most doctors have fewer than 100 consultations, or even single digits.
According to **, due to the complexity of medical decision-making, even if we try our best to improve the mode of daily activity and patient stories, the conversion rate of online consultation from Douyin to Xiaohe Health is still not high, only about 1.1 million, and it will only be less offline.
Obviously, the tepid answer sheet handed over by Xiaohe Health naturally failed the high-flying ByteDance.
From the perspective of the market structure, the three giants of Internet medical care, JD Health, Ali Health, and Ping An Good Doctor have secured the top three positions, the first two are mainly engaged in retail pharmacies, and the latter family doctor membership system has begun to bear fruit, with nearly 43 million paid members.
And Xiaohe, in the eyes of many industry insiders, is a doomed attempt.
ByteDance, which lacks medical genes, chose to learn from Ali Yilu in the early days of its establishment, but the latter has long been submerged in the wave, making Xiaohe fall into the accusation of "worshipping the wrong master". Internet medical treatment started in 2013 and soared in 2020, and almost all companies with a certain size are selling drugs under different coats.
Due to the lack of sufficient payers in China, most of the revenue of Internet medical services comes from drugs, so Internet medical companies can only focus on drugs like pharmaceutical e-commerce.
Unlike the Big Three, ByteDance is known for its algorithms, and its past business mostly revolves around information, entertainment and **, lacking e-commerce genes. The path of "selling medicine" that has been verified by predecessors, out of strategy and resource allocation, ByteDance has not stepped into the same river.
Zhao Heng, founder of Latitude Health, analyzed that although Xiaohe has the voice of "worshipping the wrong teacher", the main reason is that the online medical content community cannot undertake the diversion of the offline medical system. "If you want to rely on services to drive product sales, it is actually very difficult, because really relying on services to drive products is mainly offline scenarios, and it cannot be achieved online. He added.
Unfortunately, the sharing of diagnosis and treatment experience may not be as engaging as expected. When you enter the Xiaohe Health app page, you can see the eye-catching "real experience, learn from it with peace of mind." Encouraging patients and doctors to create real notes is Xiaohe's starting point. In its product design, you can see the familiar "Toutiao" style, providing remuneration, users can interact and share in real time.
Medical treatment is different from travel, beauty and life, the number of people who are keen to discuss the condition is limited, and the number of people and the audience who are willing to discuss the condition and means every day are certainly not comparable to other categories. The operation of Xiaohe Health is also weak, and some users complain that the posting experience is too poor on a social platform. Highly specialized and decentralized content is difficult to gain sustained attention without the support of professional and systematic services.
The layout of offline clinics is the only way to open up the whole medical chain. The U.S.-China Yihe, which is wholly owned by ByteDance, targets high-income people. This group of people** is not sensitive, and mostly relies on word-of-mouth communication, private domain marketing and high-end commercial insurance to gain customers. At a time when the fertility rate is declining year by year and obstetrics is encountering a cold winter, the diversion efforts of Xiaohe are lackluster.
Since the needs of each link in the medical field are in the hands of different institutions, rather than end users, different institutions are very fragmented and difficult to integrate.
Behind Xiaohe's dilemma is the long-standing bottleneck of Internet medicine: Consultations are mostly limited to lightweight, trust between doctors and patients is difficult to build, and the payment system is not perfect......Medical health is by no means a purely traffic-driven field, it involves multiple links such as policy supervision and service supply, and ByteDance cannot shake the towering tree of medical care with only "traffic + algorithm".
Or as the name suggests, the little lotus has just shown its sharp corners, and it has been stranded.
"For the latecomers of Internet medicine, the opportunity lies mainly in selling drugs. ”Zhao Heng pointed out sharply. Although Meituan entered the pharmaceutical market late, it is unrivaled in the pharmaceutical O2O field and has grown rapidly.
JD Health and Ali Health have long made a lot of money by selling drugs. JD Health's total revenue in the first half of 2023 was 27.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34%; Alibaba Health's total revenue for the six months ended September 30, 2023 in the latest financial reporting period was 1295.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 127%, net profit of 44.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1722%。
In the financial report, both companies are constantly enriching the categories of pharmaceutical and health products, continuously improving warehousing, logistics and other service capabilities, and prompting more users to choose to buy drugs online. At the same time, enterprises are also looking for a second growth curve, paying more and more attention to professional services such as medical services, pharmaceutical services, and chronic disease management, and promoting the deep integration of informatization and medical and health services with "technical support + service empowerment".
The advantages of the chain have become a barrier between the two, and the end-to-end chain capability is one of its core capabilities. Yiou Think Tank once pointed out in the "2021 China Pharmacy Innovation Trend Report" that relying on JD Group's digital and intelligent social chain capabilities, it provides pharmacies with a wealth of drug categories and preferential mechanisms, and at the same time, it also integrates and supplies JD Health's Internet medical capabilities and resources to improve the service level of offline retail pharmacies in an all-round way.
Open up the upstream, midstream and downstream industry terminals, form a scale effect here, and complete the sales closed loop more efficiently. ByteDance, which started with content, is quite cautious.
At the beginning of 2023, Douyin briefly tried live streaming to sell OTC drugs, but due to mediocre results and stepping on the forbidden area and red line of the new version of Internet advertising, it died down. In November of the same year, Douyin updated the "Category Publicity Specification", and merchants can only sell OTC drugs in the form of short ** and **. Live streaming brings goods, and there is no myth of wealth creation in the field of medicine.
Throughout the year, Douyin has been trying to open up channels for drug sales. Until January 2024, industry insiders found that Douyin had deleted the category of "prescription drugs approved by Chinese registration" from the list of prohibited goods on the platform, and also released the "Prescription Drug Management Specifications" and the "List of Prescription Drug Access Brands".
In the field of medicine, it has always been the prescriber who wins the world. Douyin's lifting of the ban on prescription drugs is also seen as a sign that ByteDance is approaching the core battlefield of pharmaceutical e-commerce.
However, at the same time, there are many restrictions. According to the announcement, Douyin e-commerce "prescription drug management" only accepts targeted invitations, and currently 500 brands have obtained access qualifications, and most of them are well-known pharmaceutical companies at home and abroad, such as AstraZeneca, Baiyunshan, Pfizer, Tongrentang, Kewei, and Sunflower Pharmaceutical.
The industry qualification requirements of the settled brands, such as drug business license, licensed pharmacist registration, business strength, prescription drug access list, transaction amount, etc., have been carefully stipulated. In addition, the prescription drugs invited to the market can only be sold on the shelf and cannot be promoted in any form. Advertising in any form is prohibited on the drug display page.
"Prescription drugs in China are not allowed to be advertised, and how to comply is very important. ”Zhao Heng analyzed that the risk of compliance in the sales of prescription drugs is very high, and all parties need to remain cautious.
Under all kinds of restrictions, the purchase of drugs has almost no presence in the Douyin app. Since there is no obvious entrance, users can only manually search for the name of the drug or the name of the business from Douyin** to enter the corresponding shelves to buy. Or the "** good medicine" in the "Hour Delivery" under the same city column on the homepage, you can clearly inform the delivery time and the distance of the pharmacy. However, neither of the two methods has linked Xiaohe Health, nor has it achieved the linkage between medical services and pharmaceutical e-commerce.
Compared with other veterans, Douyin is still particularly young and ignorant in selling medicines. However, its huge monthly active users of nearly 700 million and a traffic pool of 100 billion still earn enough expectations.
Whether it can rely on Douyin to sell drugs and write a new chapter in ByteDance's medical career is still bleak.