TMCnet News
Ping An Insurance Ambitious for Yihaodian.com GrowthSHANGHAI, May 31, 2011 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) -- Shanghai-based e-commerce Web site Yihaodian.com speeds up its expansion after getting capital injection from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT). Lately, Yihaodian.com posted information on an online recruitment Web site looking for employees of posts such as drivers, distributors, designers, financial directors and sales directors. Most notable are posts like medicine buyers and licensed pharmacists. It eludes understanding why an e-commerce Web site well known as an online supermarket wants to recruit so many employees that are specialized in the medical field. Actually, the recruitment has something to do with the development strategy of the majority shareholder of Yihaodian.com, namely, Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China Limited (SHSE: 601318 and SEHK: 2318), which hopes to build up a medical information network through the Web site. In 2010, Ping An Bank took a 80% stake in Yihaodian.com. The change of the Web site's equity structure is still unknown after the capital injection of Wal-Mart. However, the relationship between Yihaodian.com and Ping An Insurance is very close. Ping An Insurance plans to strengthen the development of health insurance through the investment in Yihaodian.com. The home page of Yihaodian.com has links to two medical Web sites under the aegis of Ping An Insurance. Currently, holders of the credit cards issued by Ping An Bank could shop on the platform of Yihaodian.com. Actually, Ping An Insurance has an information network based in insurance service, including rich medical data and customer information. Ping An Insurance aims to integrate the information network with the above two medical Web sites. Thus, customers of the health insurance service provided by Ping An Insurance could buy low-price medicines and enjoy medical service across regions. Meanwhile, information like electronic medical records could be shared among different hospitals. In the future, customers could log on the system of Ping An Insurance to download medical records, even though they see doctors in different hospitals. Besides, Ping An Insurance also have information of drivers. Thus, the company may sell auto parts through Yihaodian.com. The development strategy of Ping An Insurance is not invented by the company, but comes from pharmacy benefit management (PBM) in the US. PBM mainly serve insurers and entrepreneurs and drug stores could share customer information after they join the network of PBM. Currently, there is no PBM in China, where the development of health insurance is rather slow. In the first quarter of 2011, health insurance only accounted for 4% of the total premium revenues. In August 2010, Ping An Health Insurance Company invited South African peer Discovery as a strategic investor, hoping to introduce the system and technology of the partner to build its own medical database. (USD 1 = CNY 6.48) Source: www.nf.nfdaily.cn (May 31, 2011) |