China LASIK Forcast 2013 - 2023

Forecast of Laser Refract ive Surgery in China: 2013 -2023

In summary, the affordability of laser refractive surgery is very subjective and difficult to assess using objective measures, particularly since no data was forthcoming regarding the income levels of patients currently having the procedures.

Market Penetration at Saturation

Refractive surgery markets in the United States appears to grow to a steady state level of penetration within each market area. We use the term “market saturation” to describe this effect.

Market penetration is defined as the annual number of patients having laser refractive surgery compared to the potential candidate pool (patients in the appropriate age range with treatable refractive errors and required disposable income). Market saturation levels in the United States have been observed to vary with consumer confidence as discussed earlier in this report. Saturation occurs at 2.7% in good economic times. Market penetration falls to 1.2% in difficult economic times. The midpoint of these two values (1.95%) was used as the expected saturation penetration for the predication model, as shown in Table 1.

Years to Market Saturat ion

The US market initially achieved saturation within 5 years of LASIK approval by the FDA, which occurred in 1999. The growth of laser refractive surgery in China to date suggests that saturation will take much longer to achieve. Factors mitigating market growth are discussed below.

This projection in Table 1 models growth to saturation. Figure 2 and Table 2 show the CAGR needed to achieve market maturity at different intervals.

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