Dental Market China: Opportunities with New Strategic Approaches in a Challenging Environment
Von Frank-Christian Raffel
China’s dental market continues to be the fastest-growing and strategically most important market in the world – with particular challenges for international companies.
Ahead of IDS in Cologne, MRL Advisors created a white paper including the results of a February 2025 survey with the Chinese representatives of dental product providers from Europe.
In summary, the outlook for companies operating in the Chinese market is very positive. The highly dynamic growth is seen as sustainable, primarily driven by:
- Backlog demand: The treatment level of Chinese patients is still significantly below that of other countries, such as South Korea.
- Changing demographics: The increasing proportion of older people in the population will further drive the demand for dental services.
- Rising awareness: The growing recognition of the importance of dental health.
However, high price pressure, caused by the public procurement practice („Volume Based Procurement“, VBP) and improving products by local producers make international suppliers face an increasing number of challenges.
“The familiar model, consisting of the simple export of products from Europe to China via a local distributor, is under pressure„
“Starting with marketing and brand positioning, companies must implement a stronger localization of value-added stages.”
Establishing the manufacturer brand among doctors but also among patients in China is becoming much more important than in the past. To achieve this, creating general knowledge, captured in China under “Education,” is one of the key pillars.
“From a business logic standpoint alone, a distributor will not be able to make the necessary investments in brand building,” says Raffel. “Besides a subsidiary, which might be too complicated for some companies, new structures for China should be considered. Optionally, this could involve local partners but under the control of the parent company.”
According to MRL Advisors‘ databases, more than 60% of active dental providers in China from Europe work with distributors, with only a third operating through their own subsidiaries.
Further insights can be found in the full white paper from MRL Advisors: