Apollo Hospitals | Digitalisation is future engine of growth, prepared to deal with losses: Suneeta Reddy

Suneeta Reddy, Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Group, said in an interview on August 12 that though the first quarter of FY23 did not see much revenue minting from medical tourism, they are expecting to close the year with 12 percent of revenues from international patients.

Speaking to News18 on the heels of Apollo Hospitals announcing its Q1 results, Reddy said: “We did not see much (revenue generating from medical tourism) in the first quarter, although the northern region did very well with international patients coming. This is because the traffic is yet to start in the south with more flights expected soon.”

With that, the Chennai-based enterprise expects to close this year with about 12 percent of revenues coming from international patients at premium pricing.

Speaking about whether international patient volumes are back to pre-covid levels, she said that it is still slightly below right now as all flights have not resumed yet.

Commenting on Apollo Hospitals' plans about expanding its digital business, which is touted to be the fastest growing, Reddy said, “Digital business did well; it was up 21 percent, with GMV at Rs 125 crore.”

Although the Apollo digital business reported a big EBIT loss of Rs 140 crore, the MD of the company reposed faith in digitalisation being the main driver of growth and revenue in the future. To exemplify, she spoke about Apollo Pharmacy, which reported growth of 20 percent quarter on quarter.

She said that expenses were high -- at Rs 134 crores -- due to the launch of digital services and ahead of estimates too. Yet, “we do believe that digitalisation is the future engine of growth, so, we are prepared to deal with these losses that have brought down the Ebitda margin”.

Overall, she pointed out, Apollo’s healthcare services – which is its largest engine of growth -- have been “improving dramatically”. Reddy said: “In the healthcare services alone, we registered a profit of Rs 222 crores, that too with 60 percent occupancy… We believe we still have room for growth and expect to register 70 percent occupancy over the next 15 months. Through this, we will actually grow EBITDA by over 30 percent."