MANILA, Philippines — Health technology will soon occupy the startup scene in the Philippines, especially as digital financing becomes concentrated on just two players, consultancy giant Boston Consulting Group said.
In an interview with The STAR, BCG managing director Anthony Oundjain said Philippine firms should start looking at the prospect of health tech given the surge in demand for medical services in the aftermath of the pandemic.
As financial technology in the Philippines becomes a competition just between GCash and Maya, Oundjain said the opportunity for startups to grow their business lies in health tech.
“There’s a lot of investment options in health tech. I think in that space, investors should look at what it means for them, whether they should create new businesses themselves or invest in some of these companies,” Oundjain said.
Ayala-led Globe Telecom Inc., for one, believes that telemedicine app KonsultaMD can become the next unicorn of the country following the success of GCash. A unicorn refers to a startup that managed to reach a valuation of at least $1 billion.
KonsultaMD serves as one of the startups managed by Globe’s corporate incubator 917Ventures, which also handles GCash developer Mynt.
KonsultaMD will complete its merger with HealthNow and AIDE within the quarter to create the largest health app in the Philippines with a user base of more than two million.
As a result, the consolidation with HealthNow and AIDE will integrate their medical services of online consultation, medicine delivery and home care under KonsultaMD, the surviving entity.
Oundjain said health tech could become a large-scale market in the country in the future. The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that health spending per capita increased by 17 percent to P9,839.23 in 2021 from P8,411.52 in 2020, with the pandemic compelling Filipinos to invest in their well-being.
On the other hand, Oundjain said Philippine firms may start employing generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their operations. Generative AI refers to programs, such as ChatGPT, that can learn codes and data sets on its own to produce original content.
“First, it’s going to be a big productivity improvement tool for many people, [but] it means that a number of tasks will evolve, both for the people who are using generative AI and for the people whose tasks are being impacted,” Oundjain said.
BCG projects generative AI to transform into a $120 billion market by 2030, particularly as the industry gained more than $20 billion in new funding for the past three years alone.