Now it’s time to take a close look at a small but competitive business making a difference for the Korean economy. This week’s spotlight is on InBody, the recipient of the Best Content Award at the 2014 Korea Electronics Show.

The Best Content Award is given to a product with an outstandingly creative idea. Here’s Mr. Jang Min-hong, a researcher with InBody’s product planning team, to talk about which one of InBody’s products received such recognition.

The award was given to InKids, digital height measuring equipment for children. When people measure children’s heights, they usually have kids stand against the wall or visit doctors’ offices for accurate measurement. But our InKids is a portable ultrasound stadiometer that allows you to easily measure height anywhere, anytime. There is even a smartphone application with the same name, which allows parents to record their children’s growth on their phones.

InBody introduced Korea’s first portable ultrasound height-measuring device, InKids, at the 2014 KES. Unlike other products, InKids can measure a child’s height in just one second with its ultrasonic sensor, regardless of place or time. InBody has also developed a growth management application for smartphones, allowing parents to document and compare their children’s physical development over a period of time. InKids is a great product for parents since they don’t have to tell their squirming children to stand still while measuring their height. Consumers have been asking for such a product for a long time, but it wasn’t easy to come up with a portable height measuring device.

We have been supplying hospitals and clinics with stadiometers for a long time and have plenty of technological know-how in developing them, such as making them completely level, since even a slight tilt would make conventional machines inoperable. Our company was established in 1996 and our CEO, a former engineer, was the one who had invented a body composition analyzer called InBody. This product was the foundation for our company’s growth. The company has been performing well, becoming a small yet solid tech-based company in Korea.

InBody is the developer of the world-famous body composition analyzing machine of the same name. After graduating from Yonsei University and KAIST in Korea, InBody’s founder Dr. Cha Ki-chul was studying bioengineering in the United States when he realized the potential of body composition analyzers. The body composition analyzer is an instrument that estimates the amount of a person’s body fat, muscle, water, and other components. InBody’s founder was certain that this area of basic health care had huge growth potential. During his post-doctoral work at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Cha studied the shortcomings of conventional body composition analyzers and, after returning to Korea in 1996, rolled out the InBody 2.0, which overcame the limitations. Since then, it has become the most sought-after product for hospitals, fitness centers, and schools around Korea. The reason for its popularity lies in its exceptional technology.

Our product has four technological strengths. First, our InBody can measure each body part separately. The instrument does not see our body as a whole, but as five separate parts – arms, legs, and torso. So it’s possible to measure more precisely than if the body is regarded as one big cylinder. Second, InBody uses multi-frequencies. A body composition analyzer sends an electric current through our body to measure body components. So using many different frequencies is more accurate and precise in measuring water content inside and outside of cells than using just one frequency. Thirdly, a person has to place their thumbs on the InBody machine’s electrodes, so the electric currents flow separately through the thumbs and palms, ensuring accurate measurements from the wrist up. Lastly, InBody features a high reproducibility, which means a measurement can be reproduced by other people and under other conditions.

InBody was the world’s first body composition analyzer with the ability to conduct separate analyses of body parts, and to conveniently measure body fat, intra- and extracellular water content, and muscle mass all at once. Conventional analysis technology showed an average of a 10% margin of error, while InBody had under a 3% error margin and only required less than a minute on the instrument to get a result. That’s why the InBody brand has become a household name in body composition analyzers.



You’ve probably heard people saying that they’ve taken InBody tests. The name InBody has become synonymous with body fat measurement, indicating that its market share has grown enormously. About 70% of our sales revenue comes from exports. Our exports to China have grown about 30% between 2012 and 2013, and I believe this year’s performance will exceed that. In the United States we grew 40% in 2013 compared to the previous year, and we expect to see that figure go up a little for this year.

InBody has the largest share in the body composition analyzer market and it is exported to some 70 countries around the world. Such high name recognition and growing demand has prompted the company to change its name to InBody from BioSpace just on October 2nd. The company’s next ambitious product is InKids, the portable height measuring device, and it is expected to take InBody to a whole new level.

What InBody envisions for its future is health for everyone around the world. So we thought it was meaningful to put our expert knowledge into a product that can be used at home. We hope to roll out InBody for home use, InKids, and other home health care products so that people will have easier access to total health care. The company is making investments not only in hardware, but also in software, like health-related smartphone applications. Our goal is to become a company that grows in the software area as well.

InBody has grown to become a strong contender with the second largest share in the global market with its exceptional technology and product ideas. Its future in the health care product industry remains bright if the company keeps up its product and technology development efforts.