Hitachi Ltd. has announced it is aiming for sales in its health care business worth ¥600 billion in fiscal 2018, almost double its estimate for this fiscal year.
The company has been focusing on the health care sector as demand has been increasing amid the graying populations of developed economies and the growing populations of developing countries.
"We will focus on such products as ultrasound devices," Masahiro Kitano, who will become senior vice president and chief of the health care business in April, said at a news conference Monday in Tokyo.
Many domestic electronics makers have been bolstering their health care businesses on the assumption that a sudden price drop in the sector is unlikely as the technology can't be easily copied, according to a senior official at a major electronics maker.
Placing health care as a business pillar, Toshiba Corp. is expected to enhance sales of CT scanning systems. It plans to increase health care sales to ¥1 trillion in fiscal 2017, around 2.5 times the level in fiscal 2012.
Sony Corp. and Olympus Corp. have been co-developing surgical endoscopes, while Fujitsu Ltd. is involved in drug development research using supercomputers.
According to the Abe administration's growth strategy, the domestic medical market is expected to grow to ¥37 trillion by 2030 from ¥16 trillion at present and the global market to ¥525 trillion from ¥163 trillion.