Consumers significantly value the benefits of e-health over the traditional outpatient care system across pharmacy, consultation, and diagnostics categories.

Chennai: The e-health segment is at a tipping point from where it is poised to grow multi-fold to touch a value of $16 billion, finds a report.

The $1.2 billion e-e-health sector will grow at a 68 per cent CAGR to become a $16 billion opportunity by FY 25, finds RedSeer Consul-ting. The annual growth of this scale will be driven by increasing consumer receptiveness towards e-health models and rising provider/supplier willingness to partner with e-health platforms, further supported by an increased influx of investments and pro-e-health regulations.

Consumers significantly value the benefits of e-health over the traditional outpatient care system across pharmacy, consultation, and diagnostics categories.

Currently, 60 million online shopping households are willing to try health services provided through the use of information and communication technology, e-health. Out of this 60 million, 4.3 million are already using e-health. Out of the 580 million people who have internet access, India has 135 million online shoppers, who translate into 90 million online shopping households.

"As per our detailed consumer surveys, 65 per cent of such households are willing to try e-health services, thus providing the 60 million base of e-health ready addressable households. Of the ready addressable market, 4.3 million is just 7 per cent," said RedSeer. By FY25, at least 41-68 million online shopping households will use e-health, thus, supporting the growth to $16 billion, the Bengaluru-based consultant beleives.

"One of the key success drivers for players in e-health space is the ability to take care of the wider outpatient healthcare needs rather than catering to one specific need. We strongly believe that integrated e-health players have the highest chance of sustaining and succeeding in the e-health space over the next few years." said Anil Kumar, founder and CEO, RedSeer,

The study also finds that vertical focused e-health platforms will dominate the landscape given the specialised nature of the domain, need for skilled personnel and required adherence to regulatory standards. Medlife, 1mg, Pharmeasy, NetMeds, Practo, DocsApp, Medplus and Healthians are some of the leading e-health players in India.

"E-health is very different from the classic e-commerce sectors, say fashion -  fashion-related purchase is generally impulsive, due to which the role of discounts as a key trigger for purchase becomes interesting. However, the case is very different in case of health - in case you're a chronic diabetic patient, you need to have a regular access to medicines, irrespective of any trigger. This is where convenience and timeliness, along with quality & genuineness provided by e-health platforms, become the key drivers for consumers to use and stick to these platforms, instead of discounts," said Ananth Narayanan, co-founder & CEO, Medlife.