As the footsteps of an aging society become increasingly distinct, and as the "longing to hear" of 200 million people with hearing loss meets the deepening advancement of the Healthy China strategy, a collaboration concerning people's livelihoods, welfare, and industrial innovation is quietly commencing.
Recently, Boin Hearing and Huitongda formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement, using the "Hundred Cities, Ten Thousand Stores Channel Construction Plan" as a lever to pry open a new landscape for the downward penetration/expansion into lower-tier markets and accessibility of hearing health services. This is not merely a resource synergy between enterprises but also a crucial practice of the industrial chain responding to the national strategy and promoting the implementation of hearing health services. Representatives from both sides attending the signing ceremony included: Mr. Jiang Xianquan, Chairman of Boin Hearing; Mr. Zhang Jianjun, Deputy General Manager of the Group; Mr. Jiang Yong, Director of the Science Popularization and Education Division; Mr. Wu Rongjia, Group Financial Director; and Mr. Wang Haihua from Legend Capital, representative of Boin Hearing's investor. From the Huitongda side, the leadership team in attendance included Mr. Xu Xiuxian, President of Huitongda; Mr. Zhao Liangsheng, Senior Vice President of Huitongda; Mr. He Rongming, Assistant General Manager of Huitongda; and Mr. Zhang Weiwei, Deputy General Manager of the Apple Business Division's Home and Mobility Department, who collectively witnessed this important moment.
01 The Era's Proposition: Hearing Health Accessibility is Both a Livelihood Necessity and an Industrial Mission
China is stepping into a deeply aging society, with the population aged 65 and above already exceeding 15%. Behind the scale of the hearing-impaired population breaking 200 million lies a hearing aid penetration rate of only 2.5% – this set of data not only reveals the huge gap in grassroots hearing health services but also highlights the era's opportunity for industrial development. From a policy dimension, the pilot breakthrough in Shanghai allowing health insurance personal accounts to purchase hearing aids, the key deployment for aging health in the "No. 1 Document on the Silver Economy," to the clear requirements for "full life cycle health management" in the "Healthy China 2030" Planning Outline, the national level's emphasis on hearing health has risen to a strategic height. Simultaneously, the continuous breakthroughs in domestic hearing aid technology have turned "high-cost-performance professional solutions" from possibility into reality, laying the product foundation for accessible services. It is the profound resonance with this era's proposition that facilitated the "mutual attraction" between Boin Hearing and Huitongda.
Boin Hearing has deeply cultivated the hearing health field for many years. Its technological accumulation and product matrix with "Chinese Intelligent Manufacturing" at the core represent the professional height of domestic hearing equipment. Since its establishment in 2019, it has independently built a hearing health service network covering the whole country. As of May this year, the number of stores under Boin Hearing's "Hearing Earth National Chain Service Alliance" has exceeded 400, and its directly operated stores have also exceeded 100, covering 24 provinces and cities and 123 cities. It has also innovatively created the "Three Lazy Cats Four-in-One Experience Space," deeply integrating hearing health services with life scenarios. Relying on the aforementioned network, Boin Hearing has achieved "24-hour offline fitting services," where users can enjoy full-cycle services such as hearing tests, device debugging, and maintenance at any store nationwide.
Huitongda, established in 2010, positions itself as China's leading industrial internet company that uses digital technology and supply chain capabilities to empower and serve township mom-and-pop stores. It was listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on February 18, 2022. Having been rooted in thelower-tier markets for over ten years, it takes B2B as its core, platforms as the carrier, and full industrial chain transactions as the entry point, integrating industrial members and retail members to build an online-offline integrated industrial service platform. On one hand, it provides customers with stable and efficient one-stop supply chains; on the other hand, through digital capabilities, it provides SaaS+ services and merchant solutions for partners across the value chain, including member retail stores, channel cooperation clients, and brand manufacturers. To date, Huitongda has built a grassroots network covering 240,000 offline partner stores and 20,000 vertical field stores. The combination of the two is essentially a precise connection between "professional supply" and "grassroots demand," an inevitable choice for the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain to collaborate in response to the people's livelihood necessity.
02 Hundred Cities, Ten Thousand Stores: Building a National Hearing Health Service Network
Mr. Jiang Xianquan, Chairman of Boin Hearing, stated in his speech: The implementation of the "Hundred Cities, Ten Thousand Stores" plan is by no means a simple channel overlay, but a reconstruction of the grassroots health service network centered on "professional standardization + coverage extensiveness." In this collaboration, Boin Hearing will leverage its full-chain advantages in the hearing health field: from adaptation algorithms developed based on data from tens of millions of hearing-impaired people, to product matrices covering consumer-grade and professional-grade products for different scenarios, to a nationally unified service standard system, providing all-element support of "products + technology + training" for the grassroots market. By ensuring supply efficiency through direct product distribution, enhancing service professionalism through systematic training, and strengthening scenario experience through customized materials, it ensures that grassroots users receive solutions of the same quality as those in first-tier cities.
Mr. Xu Xiuxian, President of Huitongda, stated: Huitongda empowers the implementation with its "super infrastructure capability" in the lower-tier markets relying on over a thousand frontline operational personnel deeply engaged in counties, and leveraging the network density of 240,000 partner stores, it will quickly embed "Hearing Health Service Stations" into grassroots scenarios such as communities, township health centers, and elderly care service centers. The first phase clearly aims to complete the layout of over a thousand stores before the end of 2025. This is not only a quantitative target but also a model verification of "pilot - replication - iteration" – activating channel vitality through policies like operational subsidies and customer benefits, and achieving full-process monitoring of service quality through digital tools, ultimately building a multi-level service network. This integration of "professional products +lower-tier network" directly addresses the pain point of the "last mile" in grassroots health services. Hearing health services thus truly transform from "urban exclusives" to "accessible to all."
03 Value Resonance: Deep Breakthroughs from Industrial Innovation to Livelihood Accessibilit
The value of this strategic cooperation becomes a key variable in promoting "ecological restructuring" and "social value upgrade" in the hearing health field. For the 200 million people with hearing loss, the barrier to solving hearing problems is significantly reduced, directly responding to the core requirement of "improving the quality of life for the elderly" in the "Active Response to Population Aging" strategy. For the industry, the "Hundred Cities, Ten Thousand Stores" plan will accelerate the "accessibility process" of hearing health. On one hand, it will promote market education for domestic hearing aids through large-scale channel coverage, breaking the price barriers of imported products; on the other hand, the model of "extensive reach + professional service" will accumulate massive amounts of grassroots user data, feeding back into product development and technological iteration, forming a positive cycle of "demand - supply - upgrade," and promoting the entire industry's transition from a "niche medical" field to "mass health." For society, this is an important supplement to the grassroots health service system. Under the broad context of rural revitalization and the equalization of urban and rural public services, the downward penetration of hearing health services synergizes with public services like education and healthcare, collectively solidifying the grassroots foundation of "Healthy China."
From the shores of the Bohai Sea to the Tibetan Plateau, from community stores to rural service points, the collaboration between Boin Hearing and Huitongda is writing a new chapter of "professional care + channel accessibility." As the blueprint of "Hundred Cities, Ten Thousand Stores" gradually lands, and as every hearing-impaired person can conveniently embrace a clear world, this cooperation truly achieves the sublimation from "business synergy" to "people's livelihood and welfare" – this is precisely a vivid footnote of enterprises serving the national strategy and fulfilling social responsibility.
