Babitalk expands services beyond Japan into English- and Chinese-speaking markets

[Financial News] Medical beauty platform Babitalk is expanding its services into English- and Chinese-speaking markets, building on growth it has seen in Japan. Its strategy is to attract more foreign users by allowing them to explore information on Korea’s aesthetic medical services and travel in their own languages before visiting Korea.
Babitalk said on the 20th that, since the 13th, it had expanded its supported languages to four by adding English and Simplified and Traditional Chinese to its existing Japanese-language service. It plans to provide information on Korean hospitals and treatment promotions tailored to users of each language, and to manage translation quality and information accuracy using artificial intelligence (AI) and localization staff.
An analysis of overseas-issued card payment data released in August by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute found that foreign nationals’ card spending in Korea’s medical sector rose 38.6% in the first half of this year compared with the same period a year earlier. Dermatology and plastic surgery accounted for 72.1% of total spending in the medical sector, while spending on dermatology rose 49.5%. The main source markets for spending were the United States, Japan, Taiwan and China, among others.
Growth in Japan provided the foundation for this expansion. Babitalk launched its Japanese web service in August last year, followed by an app in February this year. According to the company’s own data, as of September, monthly active users (MAU) of the Japanese app had increased about 12-fold from the early days after its launch. Views of treatment and hospital information rose about 15-fold, while the number of consultations increased sixfold.
Babitalk is also expanding its AI-powered Korea travel guide. It plans to make its existing “K-Beauty Korea Travel Guide,” previously available in Japanese, available in English and Chinese, and upgrade it from a service that answers users’ questions to one that takes the context of conversations into account. The service will recommend treatment information and travel itineraries based on factors such as length of stay, treatments of interest and budget, and will also link to information on tourist attractions, restaurants and shopping.
To mark the launch of the new language services, users of the English- and Chinese-language services who take part in a survey about treatments they are interested in and when they hope to visit will be entered into a draw for country-specific prizes.
Shin Jeong-in, CEO of Babitalk, said, “The simultaneous increase in views of treatment and hospital information and in consultations on our Japanese service confirmed the interest in Korea’s aesthetic medical services. We will strengthen our service offering so that users in English- and Chinese-speaking markets can also find the information they need in their own languages before visiting Korea and prepare for both aesthetic medical services and travel.”

[email protected] Jeong Sang-hui Reporter