South Korea’s SK Telecom Co. has entered the Japanese pet market utilizing its progressive synthetic intelligence (AI) below a tie-up with Japan’s largest companion animal insurer to offer AI imaging diagnostic companies for pets.
This comes only a 12 months after SK Telecom’s entry into the imaging diagnostic market.
The firm on Tuesday mentioned it signed an settlement with Japan’s Anicom Holdings on Sept. 20 on the distribution of X Caliber, an AI-based picture diagnostics service, to veterinary hospitals in Japan.
Anicom leads the Japanese pet insurance coverage market with a 46% share and runs a veterinary hospital via a subsidiary.
Under this deal, SK Telecom has entered the profitable Japanese pet market, which is 3 times bigger than South Korea’s. The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency mentioned the Japanese market final 12 months reached 1.75 trillion yen (15.9 trillion received or $11.7 billion) in worth, far greater than South Korea’s 5 trillion received.
Japan additionally has 3 times the variety of veterinary hospitals (about 12,000) than South Korea (some 4,000). Anicom can be building ties with over 6,000 of its nation’s veterinary hospitals, that means that half of them are potential shoppers of SK Telecom.
SK Telecom is selling its AI unit to scale back its heavy reliance on communications. Imaging diagnostics stands out as a sector for its fast outcomes.
Since its launch in September final 12 months, the corporate has provided X Calibur to about 300 veterinary hospitals in South Korea. This diagnostic service makes use of AI to investigate a canine’s X-ray pictures to detect coronary heart abnormalities.
“We plan this year to expand our diagnostic scope to companion animals,” an SK Telecom supply mentioned. “We’re also preparing health management services for each pet’s lifecycle using data from Anicom Holdings.”
Write to Ju-Hyun Lee at [email protected]
