Huawei X Labs new white paper unlocks MNO opportunities in M-Health

[Shenzhen, China, April 21, 2017] Huawei X Labs released its vision for mobile heath care (m-Health) in the A New Era in Connected Health Care White Paper. The white paper highlights significant opportunities to improve patient care through remote monitoring and remote care, and focuses on the core role of mobile network operators (MNOs) in providing highly reliable solutions to drive the growth of m-health services.

M-health is emerging as an effective way to address various issues facing existing health care systems such as poor awareness of chronic disease management and unbalanced resource distribution. It promises improved quality of long-term care for patients, as well as reduced health care costs and enhanced health care efficiency for healthcare providers.

The report identifies key areas of m-health growth including chronic disease management, specific group monitoring, health management, remote care in underdeveloped regions, remote care guidance in ambulances, and remote surgery. These areas represent new revenue opportunities for MNOs with Huawei X Labs estimating that the addressable market of remote monitoring will reach USD 69 billion by 2020, while m-health will generate a market space of over USD 100 billion.

To help operators determine their role within the market, the report analyzes the potential business models for MNOs and offers advice on MNOs’ m-health engagement. Instead of merely providing connection services for remote monitoring, the report shows that MNOs have the opportunity to build on their existing competencies and experience to offer platform services like data storage and data analysis services. In remote care, collaborations with government authorities and medical institutions will help to remove industry barriers, generating more opportunities to offer high-value m-health services.

The report is among the first to provide MNOs with short-term, mid-term, and long-term m-health development suggestions, while discussing operators' roles in each stage. Through this report and X Labs initiatives, Huawei intends to help operators' unleash their potential in enabling the digital transformation of the healthcare industry and support the widespread adoption of m-health services.

"M-health undoubtedly holds huge market potential, however, monetizing these opportunities can be extremely challenging for MNOs," remarked Qiu Heng, President of Huawei Wireless Network Marketing Operations, "The exploration of future markets such as m-health requires collaborative engagement. To assist with this endeavor, Huawei X Labs aims to work together with MNOs to invigorate sustainable network innovation, accelerate ecosystem cultivation of related industries, inspire new business models, and maximize their market potential."

X Labs is Huawei's brand-new research platform for wireless networks. It intends to bring together customers, technology providers, and partners from vertical sectors to explore future mobile application scenarios, drive business and technical innovations, and build an open ecosystem. X Labs consists of three laboratories with each dedicated to explore people-to-people connections, applications for vertical industries, and applications in household.

White Paper Download Link:PDF,5.68MB