Companies under Hyundai Group and Hyundai Motor Group -- such as Hyundai Mobis, Hyundai Department Store, Hyundai Motor, and HD Hyundai -- are actively expanding their healthcare business by entering diverse sectors, including digital healthcare, health functional foods, and medical robots.
Most recently, Hyundai Mobis said that it is using its brainwave-based in-vehicle healthcare technology M.Brain for child psychological counseling.
M.Brain is a technology developed to prevent accidents by analyzing brainwave signals and sending warning signals to inattentive situations such as driver drowsiness and negligence.
According to Hyundai Mobis, drivers wearing M.Brain are up to 30 percent less likely to be inattentive, including drowsy driving.
However, Hyundai Mobis said that it plans to expand the technology's application to child psychological counseling as the technology can measure psychological conditions such as stress and anxiety in real-time through brain waves.
The company has initially delivered the device to six child protection organizations nationwide, including Incheon, Gyeonggi Province, and Gangwon Province.
"We will further expand the scope of use so that brainwave-based technology can be used for socially beneficial purposes, such as supporting child psychological counseling," said Lee Seung-hwan, head of the Advanced Research Center at Hyundai Mobis.
Hyundai Department Store also announced on Tuesday that it would invest 2 billion won ($1.5 million) in digital healthcare startup "Kick the Hurdle" to launch a healthcare store specializing in functional foods for "MZ" generation customers.
MZ refers to Millennials (born in the early 1980s to early 1990s) and Generation Z (born in the mid-1990s to early 2000s).
The investment follows Hyundai Department Store's signing of memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Kick the Hurdle to cooperate in the healthcare business, and has been exploring differentiation strategies.
Hyundai Department Store plans to provide customized services with Kick the Hurdle by not only selling products, but also recommending nutritional ingredients and suggesting ways to take them based on AI-based survey results and health consultations.
Through this, the store will sell customized health functional foods in small portions, and will also introduce a monthly subscription service.
Hyundai Motor also recently unveiled X-ble MEX, its wearable medical robot, and announced its entry into the medical robot market.
X-ble MEX is a wearable medical robot that helps rebuild lower limb muscles and exercise joints for those who have difficulty walking.
The device had received approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety as a class 2 medical device on Jan. 27.
HD Hyundai started to really invest in the healthcare business last year after it acquired MediPlus Solution, a digital healthcare solution company, in August 2021.
The company recently developed "Doctor Around," a telemedicine application, with KT to target the Vietnamese market.
The app was developed to encourage people to manage their health habits to prevent diseases in advance and improve diagnosed diseases.
HD Hyundai also collaborates with Asan Medical Center, which is part of the Asan Foundation, and the company believes Asan's clinical experience and research results are key assets that can lead to the commercialization of new products.