LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Consumer Electronics Show 2022, the world's largest IT and electronic product exhibition, was an event to confirm the growing digital healthcare market.

The same was true for Korea, which sent the second-largest number of participating companies after the U.S.

However, underneath the massive high participation lies the reality of Korea’s healthcare market that cannot grow due to limitations in systems and institutions, experts point out. In other words, Korean companies find it difficult to find a way at home, and therefore, they have to target the overseas market first.

CES 2022 confirms growing healthcare market and developing digital health technology

The U.S. Consumer Technology Association (CTA) has selected digital health as one of the key keywords for CES 2022. As a result, the digital health sector has also been taking up an increasing share in recent CES events.

"Digital health stole the show at CES 2022," said Min Kyung-joong, head of Korea Biomedical Review's Meta Health Research Center, who has been attending CES for the past 10 years.

Profesor Im Wan-soo of Meharry Medical College agreed.

"I think many technologies will eventually converge to health," Professor Im said during his appearance on Corona Fighters Live, a YouTube show run by The Korean Doctors' Weekly, a sister paper of Korea Biomedical Review. "The reason many companies in the healthcare sector participated in this year's CES was the Covid-19 pandemic."

He went on to say, “In the past, businesses had only ideas, but now, the development of technologies, including the internet of things (IoT), big data, and artificial intelligence (AI), has made it possible to turn the ideas into reality.”

Im predicted that the healthcare sector would continue to grow rapidly in the future.

Welt CEO Kang Sung-jee emphasized that digital healthcare is expanding into other fields. Welt had won the CES 2020 Innovation Award with its “smart belt.”

"Samsung Electronics also integrated its organizations divided according to products into the DX (Device Experience) unit," Kang said. "This shows the company started to recognize values and experiences these devices could give to customers. In the past, devices were mostly vertical, but now they form horizontal layers, including a health layer.”

Kang stressed that although the healthcare sector alone may have limitations, various technologies from different sectors can be used for healthcare.

"I believe there will come a time when people can even check their health while sitting in the driver's seat of an autonomous driving vehicle," Kang said.

Companies that participated in CES 2022 to showcase their latest technology also expected the event to be a stepping stone to enter the global market.

A case in point was PharmCADD, a Korean company that has developed an AI drug development model and believes that CES 2022 would be a turning stone for the company.

"This is the second year we attend CES," PharmCADD Director Hwang Jin-ha said. "As the convention is a place to showcase cutting-edge technology, demonstrating a technology during the convention has a symbolic meaning."

Participants in CES showed confidence that they could go global, Hwang added.

Noting that this year marks the third anniversary of the company's founding and that it plans to go public in the second half of this year, Hwang said it also aims to be listed on the Nasdaq within three years.

‘Korea has no premium market for healthcare technologies’

While CES 2022 showed Korea's strength in the healthcare field, it also shed light on problems facing Korean healthcare companies with no choice but to enter the global market through CES.

Industry insiders stressed that it is difficult to grow significantly in Korea due to strict systems and regulations.

That also explains why Monit launched its diaper management system for the elderly in Japan before Korea. As a spin-off company from Samsung Electronics, Monit exhibited the "Monit Elderly Care System (MECS)" at CES 2022 by attaching a strap with a smart sensor to the outside of the diaper to detect the level of contamination and notify the time of its replacement.

"We launched the product in Japan in December," Monit CEO Park Do-hyung said. "Japan's market is larger than Korea's, and the Southeast Asian market is also growing rapidly."

Park stressed that it is most difficult to conduct business in Korea as the country does not have a premium market, as the government focuses only on universal welfare.

"Korean institutions are only interested in cost-saving," Park said. "Orders are pouring in from the U.S., Europe, and Southeast Asia. However, in Korea, they ask why they should use our product."

Stressing that the prevention of diseases can reduce unnecessary medical expenses, Park called for the government to take the initiative and institutionalize such an aspect of the healthcare system.

Park pointed out that the company could receive feedbacks from abroad by making just one-tenth of efforts made at home.

"Our globalization is progressing rapidly thanks to the government," Park said cynically. "This is the effect of involuntary globalization."

On the other hand, other industry experts pointed out that some startups attracting attention from overseas do not feel the need to participate in CES because the distribution structure is rapidly progressing to D2C (Direct to Customer).

"As D2C, which directly approaches consumers through various marketing activities, such as SNS, has developed so much, we don’t feel much needs to participate in CES, a convention for meeting prospective buyers," Welt Director Kim Joo-young said. "Since you can meet consumers directly, there are few needs to convince buyers by participating in CES."