Market Overview

Personal Healthcare Services refer to services that support one’s activities for creating and sustaining a healthy lifestyle. With the spread of smartphones and wearable devices, it has become easier to collect and manage various data, such as vital data, exercise data, diet data, sleep data, medication data, and menstrual cycle. Various services utilizing smartphone apps and cloud services are available on the market.Apps for disease management and prevention monetize in a variety of ways. While B2C apps largely deploy freemium model (a pricing strategy by which a basic service is provided for free, but a premium is charged for advanced features), some services are provided on subscription basis, charge for downloading, or provided completely free of charge.Moreover, there are several types of apps designed for different business models, including "B2M2P apps" (marketed to medical institutions and provided to patients), "B2G2C apps" (marketed to government or local agencies and provided to citizens), "B2B2C apps" (marketed to healthcare-related businesses and provided to consumers), and "B2B2E apps" (marketed to enterprises or health insurance associations and provided to their employees or insured individuals). Most disease management and prevention apps either charge little or no fees to end users.

Noteworthy Topics

Expanding Coverage of PHR Services Through Collaborations

The freemium model is likely to remain the most popular for entry-level PHR services, offering basic features like step counting and sleep tracking. While these core features are available for free, more personalized programs tailored to individual needs are offered for a fee.

Additionally, the scope of PHR services is expected to expand further as companies accelerate collaboration through API integrations and other methods. In recent years, combining PHR services with fitness gyms, pharmacies, and other retailers has not only improved the health of individual users but also increased store visits and enhanced customer service at these facilities.

Furthermore, there is a growing trend toward the introduction of diet-related PHR services, particularly at dispensing pharmacies that employ dietitians. These dispensing pharmacies are integrating diet management apps to enhance their nutritional guidance service, particularly “Lifestyle Health Guidance (Tokutei Hoken Sido)”. Such guidance provides health consultations based on the results of “Lifestyle Health Checkups”, which are offered to people enrolled in the National Health Insurance Program. The focus of these consultations is on preventing or managing metabolic syndrome.

Future Outlook

The personal healthcare services market can be divided into four main areas: the health information management services market, the disease management and prevention application market, the FemTech market, and the other healthcare services market.
Revenue for service providers in these sectors has primarily come from enterprises, medical institutions, and local governments, with B2C contributing only a small share.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of service providers are focusing on developing new business models for the medium to long term. These companies aim to transform their treatment apps into Digital Therapeutics (“DTx”) by collaborating on clinical research with universities and research institutions, seeking medical device approval from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW). This would allow the apps to be covered by National Health Insurance. With society aging and growing interest in preventive medicine, personal healthcare providers are seeing significant opportunities for business expansion.

Research Outline