Industry Analysis:
Industry trend can be split into two types – Ultrasound equipment and Doppler Color flow. While
the former was introduced way back in early 1980’s, latter came into the picture in late 1980’
and early 1990’s. A company could be leader in one of the sections not necessarily leading in the
other one too.
Year 1992: Diagnostic Ultrasound industry market is over $2 Billion, accounting for 41% in US,
33 % in Europe and 12% in Japan.
High end color ultrasound systems cost $150K - $250k where as other technologies went over $1
M and were more sophisticated in terms of having diagnostic results.
Early 1980’s was the era for 2D B&W images producing equipment which then moved on to the
color ultrasound systems by late 1980’s.
Doppler color-flow was standard in high-end ultrasound systems in both cardiology and
radiology. 3D imaging was an area still in its development stages and was expected to come into
the market especially in cardiology applications.
Most products were manufactured and marketed keeping in mind the flexibility to upgrade these
with upcoming additions as per the newest trends in the technology and without having to render
the previous products as obsolete.
The ultrasound imaging market was typically segmented by product performance across the two
major application areas: radiology and cardiology.
In the radiology segment, about 45% of the worldwide ultrasound market, was considered to be
the more profitable. Internationally, the market leader was Toshiba. But in the US, Toshiba had
a 9% market share while Acuson had a leading 44% share. In cardiology (35% of the worldwide
ultrasound market), HP was the worldwide leader with an estimated 43% share in the United
States.
Following is a split of a range of products depending on performances – low,mid and high:
High-performance products – 75% of revenues (64% in cardiology)
Mid-performance...