Recently, the Internet medical service, which has been depressed for a long time, has seen waves again. On August 20, Ping An Health Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ping An Health"), the "first share of Internet medicine", released its mid-term performance in 2024, with a revenue of 2.093 billion yuan, down 5.8% year on year; The net profit was 60.629 million yuan, with an adjusted net profit of nearly 90 million yuan. This is the first time it has achieved profitability after six years of listing on the Hong Kong stock market. But at the same time, another Internet medical star company, Gooddoctor Online, was reported to have acquired. But this time the acquirer is not the previously discussed Baidu, JD.com, Alibaba, etc., but Ant Group. Internet medicine was once favored by the capital market, but from the rise and prosperity to the current adjustment, the business model has always been a problem that has plagued the development. Internet medical continued to clear the profits of Ping An Health, which did not inject too much confidence into Changpo's Internet medical track. On the contrary, the acquisition news of Gooddoctor Online made many insiders sigh with emotion. At the mid-term performance conference held by Ping An Health on August 21, Li Dou, Chairman and CEO of Ping An Health, said, "Achieving profitability in mid-2024 is indeed hard won, mainly due to the steady development of strategic businesses and the improvement of operational efficiency." From the performance indicators, Ping An Health achieved a net profit of over 60 million yuan in the first half of this year, with an adjusted net profit of nearly 90 million yuan. Despite the profit turning positive, Ping An Health's performance in the first half of the year showed "increasing profits without increasing revenue", with a revenue of 2.09 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.8%. This track has been invested in for so many years, but there hasn't been a model. The only way Alibaba and JD.com make money is by bringing their own traffic An investor in the Internet medical industry said to Zhongxin Health. It is reported that in the past three years, the market value of a single enterprise in the Internet medical field has shrunk by more than 400 billion. The valuation of industry enterprises has decreased by about 90% from the highest 500 billion to the current 60 billion. Industry analysts believe that the clearing of Internet medical services may continue to intensify until a better business model is found. In fact, some Internet medical enterprises in China have suffered setbacks in recent years, and the first drug network of Chinese Internet medical enterprises listed in the United States has started its delisting plan; The former celebrity pharmaceutical e-commerce platform, Kangaido, was on the edge of a cliff; The Spring Rain Doctor also fell silent. The same is true abroad. Teladoc conducted another round of layoffs in January this year, following the layoffs in early 2023; Optum, a subsidiary of United Health, announced layoffs in mid to late April this year; Wal Mart and Walgreens also closed stores and laid off employees. Big factories note that pharmaceutical e-commerce is the first batch of established landmark Internet medical enterprises. Gooddoctor Online may be more representative of the current situation of the Internet medical industry - what can we do without selling drugs? Wang Hang, the founder of Haodafu Online, insists on the "three no's" of Haodafu: not selling drugs, not building offline hospitals, not doing medical advertising, and only relying on doctors' online consultation services for fees. However, profitability is always the root cause of the company's development. In recent years, after experiencing difficulties in financing, layoffs, and transformation, the company ultimately "sold itself" to large corporations. The China News Health reporter noticed that the link page of "Good Doctor Online" has been seen in the Alipay Health Channel, and relevant expert information and platform data have also been moved to the channel. The online consultation services provided by doctors mainly include image and text consultation and telephone consultation. Internet giants have always been unable to let go of Internet medicine. In addition to the pioneers like Ali, Jingdong and Meituan, Tiktok, Xiaohongshu and Kwai are also accelerating their bets. However, their main focus on monetizing is still on pharmaceutical e-commerce. At the recent Western Conference, Kwai released the "Double Hundred Plan" - to build 100 industrial pharmaceutical enterprise brand benchmarks and 100 Kwai e-commerce health products. The advantage of a large factory lies in its traffic The aforementioned insiders said that the Internet logic used to rely on C-end traffic to dig gold was not suitable for the medical industry. Besides selling drugs, the B-end of medical services cannot do without long-term investment. With this feature of long cycle and slow reporting, the capital behind Internet enterprises may not be able to wait. In addition, with the gradual promotion of online medical insurance payments and the increasing popularity of online drug purchases, it is imperative to upgrade the supervision of online drug sales. Recently, Hunan, Hainan, Guangxi, Jiangxi, and Yunnan provinces have successively issued new regulations on online drug sales, all of which involve regulatory content, including strengthening the responsibility of third-party platform "managers" and fully leveraging the platform's control role; Consolidate the responsibility of pharmaceutical online sales enterprises and standardize online sales behavior; Emphasize the real name system for online sales of prescription drugs, ensuring the standardization of electronic prescriptions and prescription drug sales. Can I tell a new story by taking a ride on AI? "Now I don't think it means that Internet medicine is not on the track of venture capital, but rather that it has replaced the track of AI assisted diagnosis and treatment." The aforementioned investor said. In his view, doctors, the pain point that is difficult to solve in the commercialization of Internet medical care, are expected to be broken with the development of AI technology. With AI doctors, costs can be significantly reduced. He believes that the original Internet medical control traffic track is not hard medical resources, and has no direct connection with the industry behind. But with AI diagnosis, it will strongly support the diagnosis and treatment work of doctors at all levels, improve the efficiency and quality of medical services, and solve the problems of insufficient supply and uneven distribution of high-quality medical resources. "In this war, the track ahead has basically ended. Everyone was fighting for the license plate of the Internet hospital, but now everyone is not doing it." In addition to building super AI doctors, he also pointed out that the next step in the industry is to develop towards AI from the C-end, pay more attention to the needs of patients, reconstruct the platform's business path, and enhance their decision-making path. However, he also stated that to C's business still faces the problem of how to solve the payment side. Therefore, the ability to scale up payments is a challenge, and burning money alone is not enough. (New Society)