Surge in health care company's share price
Shares in JD Health, the health-care arm of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, surged as much as 75 percent from its offering price after raising US$3.41 billion in its Hong Kong IPO.
JD Health, which includes online health-care services such as consultations with doctors as well as online pharmacy business, reported revenue of 8.78 billion yuan ($1.34 billion) in the six months to June 30, compared with 4.99 billion yuan in the same period last year.
It closed at HK$110 on Tuesday after issuing 381.9 million shares pricing them at HK$70.58 each.
The JD affiliate started as an online pharmaceutical and health care product retailer, but has also included other health care services.
In the first half, it had an average of approximately 90,000 daily online consultations, an almost six-fold increase from a year earlier.
JD Health said its proceeds will be used to further develop its retail pharmacy business and online health care services as well as research and development.
In 2019, online consultation accounted for only 6 percent of total consultation volume in terms of outpatient visits in China, according to a Frost & Sullivan report.
Digital technology has transformed how health care products and services are provided.
The surge of online medical consultancy and prescription services amid the pandemic has also pushed up the share price of digital health care platforms.
Pingan Good Doctor has surged nearly 60 percent since the beginning of this year and Alibaba Health jumped 165 percent.
Baidu and Tencent also included online consultation and health care services as brick-and-mortar medical institutions were limited.
