Healthy prospects for manufacturer of intelligent massage chairs

A reporter tries out a massage chair produced by Xiamen Comfort Science & Technology (Group) Co Ltd. [Photo by Hu Meidong / China Daily]

Intelligent massage appliances incorporated with traditional Chinese medicine practices have great potential in the Chinese market as awareness of a healthy lifestyle grows, said the top executive of the only listed massage product manufacturer in China.

"We are developing massage chairs that can exert pressure on specific acupuncture points on the human body to help the users relax more deeply," said Zou Jianhan, chairman of Xiamen Comfort Science & Technology (Group) Co Ltd in Fujian province.

"The health data of the users will be transferred to a central digital cloud to be analyzed by physicians who will then come up with customized health plans."

According to Zou, his company plans to develop a more sophisticated model of massage chair that mimics the technique of the top 100 masseurs in China so that the customers will have a wider range of options to find the one that relaxes their tension the best.

Founded in 1996, Comfort has a high-end portfolio encompassing massage, air purification, physical examination and beauty apparatus. It went public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2011.

Zou said that his firm is still cultivating the customer base in China for massage chairs, the company's main product.

"Massage chairs are not a necessity in people's lives in China. Priced at 20,000 yuan ($2,990) to 30,000 yuan per unit, many find them too expensive. Therefore, we have created a rental scheme where the customers pay service fees every month," he said.

The latest model of the company's massage chair is able to recognize the accurate acupuncture points on the customer, show them on a TV screen, and explain the function of each point as it is being massaged, said He Zhongchun, director of the Ogawa health service project department of the group.

"As the data of the customer are uploaded to the cloud, our physicians will analyze them and offer suggestions for diet, rest and other aspects of his or her life that can be made healthier," said He.

The chair is able to respond to the human voice, just like a robot that answers to the orders spoken by its master, said He.

Comfort has also been exporting to North America, Europe and Asian countries. It acquired Ogawa (Healthy World Lifestyle Sdn Bhd) in 2014, a listed Malaysian health equipment company. In December 2015, the company acquired 75 percent of Medisana AG, a German home healthcare product provider that manufactures blood pressure monitors, personal scales and aroma diffusers.

The key competitive edge of the group is its research and development capacity, said Zou.

"Massage products come in different types and are updated quickly. For instance, one massage chair has 2,000 parts. We cast all the modules. But it's worth it. Copycat products pop up quickly but we always take the lead in designing new products," said Zuo.

The company posted 59 million yuan in net profits in 2015, up 6.80 percent year-on-year.

According to a report by the China Medical Device Information Network, an information platform supervised by the China Food and Drug Administration, family healthcare devices, which have become very popular overseas, are still catching up in China.

The report showed that the market value of family healthcare devices in China grew from 13.8 billion yuan in 2010 to 37.6 billion yuan in 2014. The compound annual growth rate is 29.8 percent, compared with 7.26 percent in the pharmaceutical industry and 11.7 percent in the medical device industry.

The market value of massage devices in China will reach 24.2 billion yuan by 2020, said the report.