SAN FRANCISCO - A banner fourth quarter has led GE Medical Systems to claim the top spot in the global ultrasound market. While GE has made a similar claim before, this year the Waukesha, WI, vendor appears to have the numbers to back it up.
For the fourth quarter of 1999, GE reported ultrasound sales and service revenue of $212 million, finishing the year with a 30% growth rate, the fifth year in a row that the company's ultrasound division has grown 30%. GE said the rest of the ultrasound market grew at around 6%.
GE has not reported full-year revenue figures for the ultrasound business. But in 1998, the company reported sales of $450 million. If the division grew at a 30% pace last year, then GE's revenues in 1999 were in the neighborhood of $585 million.
By comparison, Agilent Technologies was judged to be the world's largest ultrasound vendor in 1998 by industry analyst Harvey Klein of Klein Biomedical Consultants in New York City. Agilent, of Andover, MA, reported ultrasound revenues of over $500 million, the first time than an ultrasound company exceeded the $500 million mark, according to a Klein Biomedical report.
"We are clearly number one in ultrasound," said Omar Ishrak, vice president of GE's ultrasound division. If true, the accomplishment would mark the fulfillment of a long quest for the company, which struggled for years to prove it is a serious contender in medical imaging's second-largest modality.
In other GE ultrasound news, the company used this week's American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine meeting in San Francisco to announce a new upgrade to its mid-range Logiq 400 platform. The enhancement brings several new technologies to the scanner, now called Logiq 400 Pro, in what GE is calling the biggest upgrade to the 400 line in the last two years.
The most significant new feature found on Logiq 400 Pro is automatic tissue optimization, which allows users to push a single button to generate images that are optimized for the type of scan being conducted. Other new features include the addition of tissue harmonic imaging to the system, as well as a new keyboard and a larger, flicker-free monitor.
The Pro upgrade represents the migration to the Logiq 400 line of technologies found on GE's higher-end ultrasound scanners, Logiq 500 and Logiq 700, Ishrak said. Automatic tissue optimization, for example, was first introduced on the 700 scanner last year, as part of GE's annual schedule of ultrasound "breakthrough" releases. The next breakthrough release is scheduled for April 26, Ishrak said.
While Logiq 400 has been a workhorse performer for GE, the company has seen growth at the top end of its ultrasound line, with Logiq 700 holding its own in the super-premium segment. GE now derives an equal proportion of its revenues from the 400, 500, and 700 systems, Ishrak said. Until 700 caught on, the other two systems accounted for the lion's share of the division's business.
"Our business is dramatically shifting toward a high-end business," Ishrak said. "We are getting much greater recognition as a true technology leader in ultrasound."
By Brian Casey
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
April 5, 2000
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