Overtime work, intense job competition, physical fatigue, fast-paced life, and anxious mindsets – these have become the norm for most people nowadays. Against this backdrop, topics like "wellness" and "health" are gaining renewed attention, which also signals great opportunities for the broader health industry.

With the release of the health industry's potential and a growing demand for self-care, health wearables have gradually become hot consumer products. According to data released by the China Industrial Research Institute, the global massager market has entered a growth phase and is expected to maintain steady development in the coming years, with a compound annual growth rate of 8.15% from 2021 to 2024. Meanwhile, the wave of artificial intelligence has also benefited massage devices, turning them into smarter, healthier wearable smart massagers.

In recent years, the health wearable category seems to be one where consumers are increasingly willing to spend. E-commerce data shows that the industry's leading brand SKG achieved the top sales in the massage appliance category during the 618 shopping festival, while also winning first place in several subcategories including neck massagers, lumbar massagers, and knee massagers.

What enables SKG to consistently hold the **** position?

In fact, SKG's rapid rise as a leading brand in wearable massagers and its long‑standing dominance across multiple subcategories is no accident.

On one hand, SKG accurately captures consumer demand trends for health products.

Previously, users on social platforms often complained about lower back soreness and discomfort. To relieve these minor physical pains, many consumers discovered that massage devices can effectively alleviate lumbar discomfort, which greatly improved public perception of massager effectiveness.

Based on this, SKG integrates user massage needs, continuously refines its technical capabilities, and optimizes user experience, bringing diversified new products to the market. For example, the newly launched cervical massager N5 2nd Gen focuses on traditional Chinese massage (TCM). Its unique “channel kneading” technology combines pushing, pinching, rubbing, wiping, and grasping techniques, earning high recognition during user testing.

At the same time, to provide users with safer and more comfortable massage experiences, during its new product launch last October, SKG introduced pain‑free innovation technology, digital modulation technology, and MINI integration technology, consolidating the product strengths of being “useful, easy to use, and trustworthy”.

In addition, the continuous rollout of various health products such as knee massagers, massage sofas, health watches, and neck pillows also demonstrates SKG's precise market insight, identifying potential physical issues among users, expanding multi‑category development, and striving to provide complete solutions for comfortable living for individuals and families, which has brought a second growth curve for SKG's sales.

On the other hand, SKG fully understands the underlying logic of the new consumption era.

Health wearables are also consumer goods, and we are now in the new consumption era. Compared with other consumer goods, this is still a relatively new non‑essential category. Consumers are just getting to know it, and there is still a process of awareness building. Moreover, the penetration rate of massagers in China is far lower than overseas. Compared with 20% penetration in Japan and South Korea, China’s domestic penetration rate is only 5%, indicating significant market headroom. This track requires more brands to participate in market education and category promotion, helping consumers better understand the benefits of massagers for physical health. As a leading brand, SKG takes this responsibility.

Looking at market share, SKG's strategy has achieved impressive results. According to data from Guosen Securities Economic Research Institute, its cervical massager market share is 31% and eye massager market share is 12%.

Focusing on new industry directions, increasing R&D investment, broadening the moat

As health wearable products evolve, companies may increasingly focus on growth driven by R&D innovation. So how to gain larger market share and product sales is something SKG needs to consider in the future.

In fact, the parent company of SKG, Future Wearable, positions itself as a technology company dedicated to providing health wearable products for individuals and families. Therefore, R&D innovation and technology application capabilities are key factors for the company to win future competition.

According to its prospectus, as of the end of June 2022, SKG had a total of 169 R&D personnel. Notably, these 169 R&D staff account for 24.46% of the total workforce. They span disciplines such as creativity, technology, art, and health, including structural engineers, hardware engineers, software engineers, algorithm engineers, and material engineers.
In addition, a suitable system is essential. For this reason, SKG has established a full‑cycle product development system that improves both process reengineering and product restructuring to shorten time‑to‑market, increase development success rates, and optimize product profitability. With this product R&D management system, the company can manage and control product R&D throughout the entire process, ensuring high development success rates and market satisfaction.
Moreover, building a technology platform is equally important. Today's health products require companies to integrate technical resources and application solutions across disciplines based on product demands, align with the company's own product planning and development strategies, formulate detailed technology roadmaps, and set R&D goals at different stages. Specifically, SKG horizontally divides the technical fields involved in product development into multiple specific technical branches, and vertically into frontier technologies, key technologies, and general technologies.

In recent years, SKG's R&D expense ratio has shown an upward trend year by year, highlighting the company's emphasis on R&D. From 2019 to 2022, Future Wearable's R&D expenses were RMB 22.75 million, 47.14 million, 74.73 million, and 97.85 million respectively, while the R&D expense ratios to operating revenue were 2.87%, 4.76%, 7.05%, and 10.82%.

According to the provisions of the national "Administrative Measures for the Recognition of High‑tech Enterprises", R&D expenses as a percentage of operating revenue should be between 3% and 5% for high‑tech enterprises. By this standard, SKG's R&D expenses are notably high.

Furthermore, in terms of patents – one of the metrics for measuring R&D outcomes – as of December 31, 2022, Future Wearable and its subsidiaries held a total of 1,571 patents. Last year, the company received the “2022 National Intellectual Property Advantage Enterprise” award, and this year it won the “China Patent Award”.

At the same time, Future Wearable is also the Guangdong Provincial Engineering Technology Research Center for “Healthy Intelligent Wearable Massage Devices”, a Guangdong Provincial Specialized and Sophisticated “Little Giant” enterprise, and a Shenzhen Postdoctoral Innovation Practice Base, further proving SKG's investment and leading position in the technology field.

On March 15 this year, SKG, as one of the lead units in the health field, participated in drafting industry standards for massagers based on its years of research into massage devices and related technologies. Industry insiders commented that the establishment of this industry standard may fill gaps in domestic product design for cervical massagers and help standardize industry development.

The prospectus shows that SKG has already mastered core technologies including industrial design, IoT and smart capabilities, and miniaturized physical health, forming a high technical barrier.

However, technological innovation is an endless climb. With the release of new technologies and products, SKG has made new breakthroughs in understanding user needs and product value. It has not only laid out a three‑dimensional product system from eyes, neck, to waist massage, but also established three strategic directions: pain management, health monitoring, and sleep assistance.

Moreover, SKG will accelerate its overseas expansion going forward, which will serve as a new growth point for its revenue. After all, Chinese massager exports cover 191 countries and regions worldwide, with a cumulative export value of approximately US$6 billion in 2021, indicating vast prospects.

Looking ahead to industry trends, the development of portable massagers will inevitably embrace the smart wearable industry, continuously integrating more new technologies to provide consumers with richer functional experiences and practical value. It is foreseeable that SKG will follow the trend, skillfully blending product values such as insight into the needs of the times, technological innovation, and design aesthetics, using benevolent technology to find better answers to the health problems of each era. (First published on TMTpost App, author: Zhai Zhichao)