The Development Status of China's Dental Industry

    With the development of China's economy and the improvement of people's health awareness, the demand for oral medical services is increasing rapidly. In recent years, with the continuous publicity of oral health, the oral health awareness of domestic residents is gradually enhanced. According to the results of the 4th national epidemiological survey of oral health, the awareness rate of oral health of the entire population is 60.1%, and 84.9% of the Chinese people have a positive attitude towards oral health care.

In addition, since the implement of Reform and Opening Up Policy 40 years ago, China's national economy has continued to grow rapidly, which has provided a better economic foundation for the development of the dental industry.  

At the same time, the state government allows the oral health care institutions to introduce diversified main bodies. After the related policies were issued, the structure of oral health institutions diversifies from single public ownership to diversification.

There're oral specialist hospitals and dental department in general hospitals of non-profit public ownership, as well as dental institutes in other forms of ownership.

In the future, China's private dental medical institutions will become more and more popular and play an important role in oral health care. 

As the concept of health and beauty is compatible with dental industry, it belongs to advanced consumption products. Therefore, with the continuous development of China's economy and the enhancement of residents' health care awareness, the domestic oral treatment industry is in a state of rapid growth.  

There's a marketing concept and much operation space for oral health. Considering from factors like the quantity of population, the universality of oral diseases, the market demand of dentists, the contact, cooperation, complementarity between dental industry and other industries, with the improvement of people’s economic life and cultural consumption level, as well as the awareness of oral health, the Chinese dental industry will develop rapidly and there will be a potential huge market.

Dental industry has the advantages of repeated consumption and standardization, and the four major business parts focus on high-end consumer groups. The four major oral businesses are orthodontics, dental implant, tooth whitening and pediatric dentistry. We can see that dentistry is a continuous consumption industry, and some items need higher costs that are not included in the national public medical insurance system.

More importantly, the dental program is not a one-time treatment through surgery, and patients often need 1-2 years continuous dental treatment, with a high level of circular consumption. With the progress of dental technology, the level of standardization of related oral equipment will keep improving, and the dependence of patients on famous doctors is reduced, it accelerates the expansion of oral chain institutions.

At present, the penetration rate of high consumption items in dental treatment is low. With the improvement of residents' consumption ability and the enhancement of their awareness of dental care, it is urgent to upgrade the consumption of oral care. It is common that the expense of dental treatment for one operation will be tens of thousands of Chinese Yuan. In early times, it concentrated on super big cities like Beijing, Shanghai. Then it gradually expands to other smaller cities. To a certain extent, the sustainability of dental treatment consumption can alleviate the problem of high expenses and at the same time, the dental clinic can obtain a relatively stable and sustained cash flow. The income increase and aging will be the major driving forces of the dental industry in the future.  

Government policies promote the rapid development of the dental industry. In recent years, China has launched a number of policies, covering many aspects like large-scale oral hospitals, dental clinics, dentists, patients’ education and oral precautions, etc.

The policy emphasizes the importance of residents' oral health care and promotes the development of the oral care industry while strengthening the supervision of this industry. Under the guidance of a number of national policies, various provinces, cities and autonomous regions in China have formulated corresponding dental treatment policies in combination with their own situations. Under the background of policy promotion of oral care industry, China's oral service industry will achieve long-term, stable and high-speed development. 

Meanwhile, it will spark a fire of fast improvement to the market of dental products and dental supplies, like denture box, cheek retractor, endodontics, impression tray, dental instruments (mouth mirror, dental probe, dental tweezers), dental plastic tray, mixing accessories, matrix system accessories, etc. These dental products and dental supplies are very popular in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. But they’re not used as frequently as in Chinese dental hospitals or dental clinics. The situation will be rapidly changed and improved a lot in the near future.