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 SG HealthCare, an innovative medical equipment company.

The 31st Korea International Medical and Hospital Equipment Show 2015 took place in Seoul for five days, starting on March 5th, and the theme was “The Health of Today, the Happiness of Tomorrow.” KIMES 2015 was attended by some 530 local manufacturers and world-leading giants like GE and Fuji to present the future of medicine. One of the companies that caught the attention of industry insiders was Korea’s SG HealthCare. Here’s SG HealthCare Sales Department head Kim Joo-sang to tell us more about the products that won great reviews at the show.

This is our latest release, user-friendly ultrasound equipment. When a doctor wants to take an ultrasound image of a fetus, the doctor has to manipulate several buttons and control pads to adjust the setting, but our ultrasound system can be adjusted just by touching the screen. These images are clear, real-time, three-dimensional videos, which cannot be produced by other ultrasound machines. In most cases conventional machines can provide only 3D or 4D images, not real-time, moving displays. In contrast, our machine can provide videos that can be seen as they are recorded.

The G40 model is capable of taking 3D and 4D images, and also displaying real-time, moving pictures. SG HealthCare has other innovative products, like its digital X-ray machines and the Invictus MRI model, an open design MRI machine capable of multithreaded image construction of much higher quality than other open-type MRI machines available in the market. These diagnostic devices showcased at KIMES 2015 all fulfill the demands made by the current medical equipment market. Here’s how the company got its start.

SG HealthCare was established in 2010 and has been producing diagnostic equipment ever since. Our company CEO, Jason Kim, graduated from KAIST and won the grand prize in the government-sponsored venture startup contest in 1998 and started a company called Star V-Ray in 1999. Since then, he had served as CEO of an American firm and president of C-Tech Global, the predecessor to SG HealthCare, and was awarded the Prime Minister’s commendation in 2014 as the best young businessman.

During the 1998 foreign currency crisis, Korea strongly supported new venture firms in an attempt to jump-start the economy with new growth engines. That’s when SG HealthCare’s CEO Jason Kim appeared on the scene as an entrepreneur to lead Korea into the knowledge and IT-based 21st century. Countless venture startup companies came and went over the past 15 years, but Jason Kim was able to expand his company by focusing on export.

SG HealthCare was started with overseas markets in mind. Ninety-nine percent of our sales take place overseas and just one percent domestically. There are no Korean medical equipment companies in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. So we used our overseas marketing skills and advanced technology to extend our overseas sales network. Most recently, we won the bid for 250 digital X-ray machines from the Turkish government and received an order for 30 digital X-ray machines from the Dominican Republic. The major markets for our products are Turkey, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Peru.

SG HealthCare has built a worldwide network in some 40 countries and has so far focused only on overseas sales. The company is more widely recognized in foreign countries than in Korea. In fact, SG HealthCare is showing an exceptionally rapid revenue increase in the global medical equipment market, which has traditionally been dominated by such industry giants as General Electric of the U.S., Phillips of the Netherlands and Siemens of Germany. That’s because SG HealthCare has the competitive edge needed to excel in the industry.



We provide the best value for the money. The key to making successful diagnostic devices is ensuring the clearest images. Our products may not be as expensive as others, but our product quality rivals that of global leaders like GE, Phillips, and Siemens. Another strength of ours is prompt feedback. We collect feedback from doctors all around the world. Their opinions about our products and problems they experienced while using them are all incorporated into our technology development work. So we try to address the troubles by rolling out new and improved machines every year.


SG HealthCare products boast world-class performance, but cost up to 40% less than its global competitors. Constant market research, technology development, communication with customers, and strict quality control are what made SG HealthCare one of the most promising companies in today’s medical equipment market.