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By Guo Shan
Source: Lu Jiu Finance (ID: liujiucaijing69)
Recently, Body Discorphia ("facial anxiety" in Chinese) has been frequently searched on Twitter, which has become a hot topic among Tiktokers. Subsequently, the new derivative word Zoom Dysmorphia has also been hyped, specifically referring to the facial anxiety people have generated in the video conference Zoom during the epidemic.
One world, one "appearance anxiety".
In addition to temporarily "cheating" yourself with beauty software, plastic surgery seems to be a better choice for pursuing long-term effects.According to the data of Grand View Research, an overseas research institution, the global medical beauty scale will reach US $86.2 billion in 2020, and it is expected to maintain a compound growth rate of 9.8% from 2021 to 2028.
Under the heat, there is no good solution to the problem of information asymmetry between overseas medical beauty institutions and consumers. The lack of Internet medical beauty platforms even cost overseas consumers their lives.
This problem has been solved by Internet platforms such as New Oxygen, Meibei and Genmei in China for a long time. China's Internet medical beauty platform has the first mover advantage, and the leading enterprise New Oxygen has already been listed on NASDAQ. So since it has successful experience that can be replicated, why can't these platforms expand their business?
01
The epidemic has given birth to the overseas medical beauty market
According to the data of the American Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery, the total revenue in the field of plastic surgery in the United States will reach 9 billion dollars in 2020, and the total number of surgical cases will be 2314720.According to the BBC, a joint survey of plastic surgeons from Australia, the United Kingdom and Japan found that the number of plastic surgery appointments in the above areas was also exponentially increasing in 2020.
Amir Tahernia, a famous American plastic surgeon, said publicly that the epidemic led people to hold frequent video conferences, stare at the camera for a long time, and pay attention to the "imperfections" that they would not have noticed before, which is the main reason why people come here recently to seek plastic surgery.
The beauty filter on social software is also one of the reasons why European and American people choose medical beauty projects.
Many Twitter users complain that the epidemic is too boring at home, and they are increasingly addicted to Instagram and Tiktok. However, because of the strong contrast between their own beauty and their real appearance, they have serious anxiety and even the idea of plastic surgery.
Dave, an orthopedic surgeon at Los Angeles Hospital in the United States, said in an interview with American media that several years ago, many people came to him with pictures of stars, but in recent years, more people came to him with pictures of their beautiful faces for help.
In addition, the extension of home time and wearing masks to cover the face when traveling have created a good postoperative recovery environment for plastic surgeons.
According to the survey data of the American Association of Cosmetics and Plastic Surgery, 11% of women said that during the epidemic, they were more interested in plastic surgery or non-surgical plastic surgery than ever before;Taking advantage of the epidemic, 24% of women in the United States have undergone surgery or non-surgical plastic surgery.
On why the cosmetic surgery continued during the epidemic, Lu Jiu Finance and Economics exchanged views with several people from Europe and the United States.
Kyra, a 32 year old American ballet dancer, said to Lu Jiu Finance that she had done injection beauty and skin beauty projects during the epidemic, because she had enough time to recover, and the fine adjustment of her face made her look better on the stage;Before the epidemic, she needed to travel around the world. She was busy every month and had no time to do medical beauty.
Imogen from Australia had a nose beauty project during the epidemic, improved her humped nose, and is now resting at home."Because the epidemic was wearing a mask, no one could find my nose swelling when going out."
What are the consumer preferences in the European and American markets?According to the data of the American Orthopaedic Association, the number of people who choose non-surgical plastic surgery in the United States is more than that who choose surgical surgery;Among the non surgical items, the first one is the anti wrinkle and thin face item including Botox, the second one is soft tissue filling, and the third one is the popular item of laser;The top three in surgical plastic surgery are nasal plastic surgery, eye adjustment and facial enhancement.
In addition, the willingness of consumers in the European and American markets to do medical beauty is affected by the region where they are located, and they will choose the region according to the price, professionalism, etc.Grill from Minnesota said that California is the most developed area for plastic surgery in the United States, and the demand here is also stronger. Most beauty lovers will choose to have plastic surgery here.Gian of Italy said that people seeking plastic surgery in Italy would choose to go to Croatia and Slovenia because the costs in these two countries are lower.
02
Social software has become the main battlefield of overseas medicine and beauty
The overseas demand for medical beauty is very strong, and the number of beauty lovers abroad is never less than that in Asia.
However, due to the lack of overseas Internet empowerment for medical beauty institutions and the absence of professional medical beauty online service platform, the cost of establishing links between businesses and consumers is high. Sometimes businesses can not find users even if they spend high marketing costs, and users are difficult to select suitable medical institutions from the search website alone.
Lu Jiu Finance and Economics communicated with 10 consumers aged 20 to 50 from Europe and the United States. It was found that the main medical and aesthetic information in Europe and the United States was spread through social media. Instagram, Tiktok, Billboard and other social media are becoming the main battleground for medical and aesthetic institutions to compete.
Consumers can judge whether to do the project and which institution to choose by comparing the items uploaded by medical beauty institutions before and after.However, such information dissemination lacks supervision and risks information asymmetry.It is not uncommon to steal pictures. On Instagram and Tiktok, there are many different medical and aesthetic institutions that release photos before and after surgery that are identical, but only with different names for patients.
This kind of information is obtained solely by means of social media, which has even caused human life.Not long ago, a woman named Keuana Weaver in the "Sister Plastic Surgery Group" in California, USA, died at the hands of the famous Mexican "doctors" who were popular on the Internet, and two others suffered from serious renal failure and sepsis respectively.
In terms of the choice of doctors, foreign consumers also discriminate against doctors with different skin colors, races and surnames.
A survey conducted by the American Society of Plastic Surgery on 3000 audiences shows that people tend to choose Caucasian American and Latin American doctors as the first choice in choosing plastic surgeons.From the gender perspective, women doctors are generally selected by the people participating in the survey.
Medical beauty is different from "beauty", and project operation has different degrees of risk.Consumers do not have industry knowledge reserves. Choosing doctors by intuition and preference is not only ineffective, but also risky.
The relatively safe approach is to choose institutions with large size, good reputation and long business hours.
Gian mentioned that in Italy and some other European countries, facial non-surgical beauty and dental plastic surgery are relatively common, but because there is no perfect access to plastic information, people go to several specific large hospitals.
The disadvantage of selecting well-known institutions is that the appointment time is too long, even after half a year;Doctors are good at different projects, and their levels are also uneven. Some consumers are not satisfied with the adjusted effect.
Then, is the domestic professional vertical medical beauty platform, such as New Oxygen, attractive to overseas consumers?Gian affirmed that he thought that the software integrating community discussion, experience sharing, preoperative and postoperative simulation and comparison, and online search of doctors' qualifications was very convenient, which they had never thought of before.He also added that although there were few people around him who had surgery, the demand for skin beauty, orthodontic surgery, and breast cancer patients after surgery was relatively high.
Lujiu Finance has tried several plastic surgery service software from Europe and the United States, and found that most of them focus on preoperative and postoperative simulation comparison, or doctor qualification inquiry and service appointment, but the information provided is very simple or limited, and does not give full play to the advantages of the network in information aggregation, and some still need telephone consultation.
According to insiders in the medical and aesthetic industry, there is a clear boundary between the plastic surgery and micro plastic surgery industries in the European market. The hospitals that set up plastic surgery must be regular and top hospitals, and doctors with doctor qualifications should carry out them. For example, minor surgery such as facial lifting and facial injection can also be found in some private clinics, and doctors also need to be qualified.
Even though the strict supervision on qualification has partially solved the problem of trust, the problems of information asymmetry and lack of channels for information dissemination still exist, and the comprehensive authoritative platform to display personal qualifications and surgical cases, and collect patient feedback and evaluation is still missing.
03
Why is it difficult for domestic medical beauty platform to go to sea
The gap in the European and American markets may be an opportunity for the Chinese Internet medical beauty platform with first mover advantage. Why do these platforms choose to deeply cultivate the domestic market and rarely develop overseas business?
Lujiu Finance and Economics exchanged views with NEO, the "first Internet medical beauty stock" listed on NASDAQ, on the issue of overseas market expansion.
The relevant person in charge of New Oxygen said that New Oxygen had inspected the overseas market before, but it had not found any overseas enterprises that could be benchmarking.Previously, in order to let investors understand the business model of New Oxygen, the benchmarking of New Oxygen Auto Home was carried out for a long time, but now the development of New Oxygen is further, and this benchmarking has not been mentioned again.
At present, NEOX only has a small number of overseas medical beauty products on the platform.In Japan and South Korea, New Oxygen has set up special branches, but the main role is to accept services from mainland consumers in Japan and South Korea.With the rapid development of mainland medical beauty, the development of this business is also limited.
As for not accelerating the expansion of overseas markets, the person in charge of New Oxygen mainly divided the reasons into three parts: consumer willingness, regulatory policies and differences in facial features.
From the perspective of overall market consumption willingness, consumers in Europe and the United States are less willing to choose medical beauty projects than those in East Asia.
One of the reasons is that the proportion of people in Europe and the United States who believe in Christianity is large, and some medical and aesthetic projects are contrary to their religious doctrines;The second reason is that the social welfare of some developed countries in Europe and the United States is relatively high. There is less competitive pressure than East Asia, and fewer people consider changing their destiny through appearance.
In terms of policy, New Oxygen said that because the regulatory standards for medical beauty projects and products in each country are not unified, they will not enter the new market without sufficient knowledge and investigation.In addition, some developed countries that implement universal medical insurance cover some medical beauty projects within the scope of medical insurance. The consumption attribute of medical beauty is not strong in these regions, but the medical attribute is stronger, and the prospect of commercial market is not so clear.
The offline medical and aesthetic places in Europe and the United States are not highly developed, and because most of them are born with profound facial features and more concave and convex figures, the relatively common medical and aesthetic projects with high acceptance in East Asia, such as nose augmentation and eye opening, are basically not audience groups in Europe and the United States.
New Oxygen mentioned that, especially after the epidemic, the development focus of new oxygen business is more firmly on the domestic market, but the plan to enter other medical service fields is gradually being implemented. For example, New Oxygen arranged dentistry last year, participated in and led investment in C2 round financing led by consumer medical SaaS+supply chain platform, and became its single largest shareholder,Further consolidate the leading advantages of New Oxygen Technology in the dental field.
From the perspective of strategic layout, New Oxygen certainly hopes to build a complete product matrix and cover more medical fields in the future, but it still focuses on medical beauty.
04
Lu Jiu Comments
Foreign investors can't understand the value of new oxygen
As of May 31, 2021, according to Simple Wall Street, the current stock price of New Oxygen is only 9.8 dollars/ADS, which is lower than the analyst target price (14.94 dollars/ADS) given by Yahoo Finance.Analysts from Simple Wall Street even gave the fair value of Neooxygen as high as $56.86/ADS.
Contrary to the professional opinion of analysts, the stock price of New Oxygen has been very low since its listing.What is the reason why overseas investors are so pessimistic about NEOX?
After communicating with many retail investors of New Oxygen, Lu Jiu Finance and Economics found that the first possible reason was that China Concept shares generally suffered from survival difficulties overseas. The introduction of short selling reports, the "China Concept Share Act", etc., and the negative comments of some national officials on China Concept shares made the whole market lack trust in China Concept shares.
Secondly, there is no target company overseas, and investors cannot understand the business model and business value of New Oxygen very well.The reason why foreign investors are very optimistic about Alibaba is that Alibaba has always challenged Amazon's position as the leader in the global e-commerce industry, and Amazon's ability and value have been widely recognized. It must not be easy for enterprises to challenge Alibaba.
Lu Jiu Finance and Economics exchanged views with overseas analyst Toni Nasr, who admitted that there are no players in the same field as New Oxygen listed in the US stock market, and most of them are private.According to his prediction, the fair market value of New Oxygen is expected to increase by 17% to 22% by the end of 2021.Toni also confessed that he had not paid attention to NEO before, but through communication with Lujiu Finance, he expressed interest in conducting follow-up research on the market value and business model of NEO.
There is no benchmarking enterprise overseas, and there is no business layout overseas, so how can overseas investors truly understand the value of Internet medical services under the current situation of global epidemic isolation? It is not only new oxygen, but also Meibei, Genmei and other Internet medical and beauty platforms that need to think deeply.
At present, the stock price of New Oxygen may have to hover for some time in an awkward period.
