With overseas revenue reaching RMB 8 billion, Aier Eye Hospital pursues A+H dual listing through Hong Kong IPO

In 2009, the ChiNext board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange welcomed a special new member — Aier Eye Hospital, which officially made its market debut with the distinction of "China's first listed ophthalmic healthcare company".

At that time, China's private ophthalmology sector was still in its nascent stage. With public hospitals monopolizing high-quality ophthalmic resources and a substantial gap in primary eye health services, Aier Eye Hospital penetrated the market by leveraging a chain-based model. Capitalizing on the A-share capital market, the company achieved initial capital accumulation and rapidly expanded its domestic footprint, cementing its position as the leading enterprise in China's private ophthalmology sector.

Seventeen years later, this private healthcare enterprise that originated in Changsha has grown into the world's largest ophthalmic healthcare group. On May 27, Aier Eye Hospital officially submitted a prospectus application for listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, aiming for an H-share listing. This filing is not merely a straightforward secondary financing; rather, it represents a key strategic move to complete Aier Eye Hospital's A+H dual capital platform layout. This marks its strategic upgrade to establish a strong domestic presence while deeply cultivating global markets, officially ushering the company into a new development stage driven by dual domestic and international engines and mutual empowerment between its operations and capital.

Looking back on its 17-year development journey, every step of Aier Eye Hospital's growth has precisely aligned with the critical milestones of industry evolution. From leveraging A-share capital dividends to establish a foothold in China and capture lower-tier markets in 2009, to decisively expanding overseas through M&A to build a global footprint in 2017, to betting on AI and digitalization to drive its technological transformation in recent years, and culminating in the 2026 launch of its H-share listing to establish an A+H dual platform system, Aier Eye Hospital has steadily broken free from the inherent constraints of private healthcare's "single-hospital profitability and regional confinement."

The recently disclosed Hong Kong listing prospectus comprehensively analyzes the underlying logic behind its leapfrog growth, and clearly outlines Aier Eye Hospital's long-term development blueprint of leveraging dual capital markets to continuously advance globalization, digitalization, and specialization.

During its initial phase, ophthalmic medical resources in China were highly concentrated in public hospitals across tier-1 and tier-2 cities. Residents in grassroots areas faced significant difficulties in accessing eye care, while the supply of consumer-driven services such as refractive and optometric care remained inadequate, becoming the industry's most pressing pain point. Seizing this market opportunity, Aier Eye Hospital innovatively established a "1+8+N" tiered chain diagnostic and treatment system, dismantling the traditional rigid system of medical resource allocation. By adopting a hierarchical operational model—where flagship hospitals in tier-1 cities manage complex and critical cases, provincial hospitals cover regional markets, and county-level clinics deliver foundational grassroots services—standardized eye care rapidly penetrated lower-tier markets across China. This replicable, actionable, and scalable operational logic served as the core competitive advantage that allowed Aier Eye Hospital to outperform small and medium-sized private providers and close the gap with the public healthcare system. It also provided a robust foundation of mature chain healthcare management expertise for its subsequent international expansion and global strategic layout.

After solidifying its core market position in China and consistently maintaining a leading market share, Aier Eye Hospital made a pivotal decision in 2017 to reshape its corporate landscape: the launch of a comprehensive global expansion strategy. Diverging from the development approach of most private healthcare enterprises that remain confined to their home markets, Aier Eye Hospital chose to directly enter the mature healthcare markets of Europe and the United States, integrating premium overseas brands through mergers and acquisitions to establish a global service network. As of December 31, 2025, Aier Eye Hospital has established 842 ophthalmic medical institutions across three continents, with 663 institutions in China achieving full nationwide coverage and 179 overseas institutions taking root in the core markets of Europe, Southeast Asia, and the United States. This has formed a global operational matrix characterized by a multi-brand strategy, localized operations, and cross-border synergy, significantly widening the competitive gap with domestic peers.

The 2017 wholly-owned acquisition of Clínica Baviera in Europe marked a milestone in Aier Eye Hospital's global expansion and has since become a benchmark model for its overseas operations. At the time of acquisition, this long-established European ophthalmic institution reported revenue of just €100.4 million, with modest profit growth. Nine years later, Clínica Baviera has achieved exponential growth: its 2025 revenue surged to €303 million, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.8%, while its net profit margin climbed from 9.8% to 14.2%. Following years of dedicated operations in the European market, it has consistently held the largest market share in Spain. As of the end of 2025, Aier Eye Hospital's overseas business has generated cumulative revenue of nearly RMB 8 billion, officially becoming the Group's most stable second growth curve following consumer ophthalmology in China.

Through years of phased, cross-cycle strategic expansion, Aier Eye Hospital has ultimately built an irreplaceable scale barrier, with its clinical service volume consistently leading the global industry. Cumulatively, the group has provided over 113 million outpatient ophthalmic medical services worldwide. In 2025, outpatient visits reached 18.89 million, while surgical volume steadily climbed to exceed 1.68 million cases during the same period. As of the end of 2025, backed by an extensive network of 842 global medical institutions, a professional talent pipeline of over 7,500 ophthalmologists, and an exclusive global clinical database comprising over ten million records, Aier Eye Hospital ranks first globally across all core dimensions—including outpatient volume, surgical volume, revenue scale, and market capitalization—within the ophthalmic healthcare sector. This service capacity, spanning global reach, full-spectrum categories, and full-lifecycle care, has established a scale moat that peers cannot replicate in the short term.

The past three years have marked a cycle of policy adjustments, consumer market fluctuations, and intensified industry consolidation within China's healthcare sector, and have also served as a critical period for Aier Eye Hospital to validate its profitability resilience. From 2023 to 2025, against the backdrop of an overall industry growth slowdown and the contraction and closure of certain private institutions, Aier Eye Hospital still achieved steady revenue growth, with total revenue rising from RMB 20.367 billion to RMB 22.353 billion, maintaining positive growth for three consecutive years. This robust revenue performance stems from its diversified business structure, honed over many years, which has effectively eliminated the operational risks associated with single-business reliance and continuously demonstrated its capacity to navigate industry cycles.

The differentiated profitability profile inherent in its business structure constitutes the core foundation of Aier Eye Hospital's profitability framework. As two core high-gross-margin segments, refractive surgery and optometry services consistently account for over half of Aier Eye Hospital's revenue and the majority of its profits. In 2025, revenue from refractive surgery reached RMB 8.383 billion, accounting for 37.5% of total revenue, with a gross profit margin maintained at 55.0%; revenue from optometry services stood at RMB 5.788 billion, representing 25.9% of total revenue, with a gross profit margin of 51.9% . The two major "To-C" consumer ophthalmology businesses, driven by inelastic demand and high per-patient transaction values, have become the core pillars of Aier Eye Hospital's profitability.

In contrast, diagnostic and treatment services for conditions such as cataracts and fundus diseases have a public-service character and involve the management of complex cases, resulting in a relatively lower gross profit margin. In 2025, the gross profit margin for cataract procedures was 33.5%, while that for posterior segment procedures stood at only 27.6% . Although this type of business offers limited profit margins, it enhances Aier Eye Hospital's comprehensive ophthalmic diagnostic and treatment capabilities, boosts brand reputation and industry influence, and establishes a complementary model where "high-margin consumer services generate profits, while inclusive clinical services build brand reputation."

Against the broader industry backdrop of intensifying competition and steadily rising operating costs, Aier Eye Hospital's overall gross margin has exhibited a slight downward trend with fluctuations, with its comprehensive gross margin declining from 50.8% in 2023 to 47.1% in 2025. This shift represents a normal industry phenomenon during the company's scaled expansion. On one hand, an increasing number of players have entered the domestic ophthalmology sector, making homogenized competition the industry norm. On the other hand, Aier Eye Hospital has continuously expanded its outlets in lower-tier markets and executed overseas M&A. The consolidation of low-margin grassroots institutions and overseas entities into its financial statements, coupled with the natural growth of rigid costs such as labor and medical consumables, has led to a phased minor adjustment in its overall profitability structure. Nevertheless, firmly underpinned by its high-margin consumer ophthalmology services, Aier Eye Hospital's overall profitability fundamentals have remained consistently robust.

As the profitability bottlenecks resulting from scale expansion gradually emerged, Aier Eye Hospital proactively initiated a strategic pivot, marking its most critical strategic decision over the past five years: transitioning from "scale-expansion-driven growth" to "technology-innovation-built competitive barriers." Unlike the development model of most private medical institutions, which prioritizes marketing, underinvests in R&D, and relies heavily on traffic, Aier Eye Hospital has leveraged years of accumulated clinical data and medical resources to take the lead in deploying digitalization and AI technologies in ophthalmology, aiming to become the world's first medical group to integrate AI across the full lifecycle of eye health services, breaking free from the industry's vicious cycle of homogeneous competition.

Leveraging exclusive resources from a global clinical database comprising over ten million records, Aier Eye Hospital has established a comprehensive digital ophthalmology ecosystem. By independently developing its proprietary ophthalmology-specific AierGPT and the digital human "Eyecho," the company has deployed AI technology across all operational scenarios, including eye disease screening, clinical diagnosis, surgical assistance, patient follow-up, and professional training. The widespread implementation of digital quality control systems and intelligent diagnosis and treatment systems has standardized and regulated clinical workflows across thousands of institutions in China and globally, effectively resolving the most critical challenge of inconsistent clinical quality during the large-scale expansion of chain healthcare networks.

This comprehensive ecosystem of "clinical data + AI technology + top-tier talent + research translation" , meticulously built over many years, thoroughly distinguishes Aier Eye Hospital from traditional ophthalmic chain institutions, completing its transformation from a medical service provider into a technology-driven healthcare platform.

The successful filing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange means that Aier Eye Hospital has officially completed the strategic layout of the A+H dual capital markets: A-shares on the SZSE and H-shares on the HKEX, completely breaking free from the developmental constraints of relying on a single domestic capital platform. Unlike the short-term financing objectives typical of conventional corporate listings, Aier Eye Hospital's A+H dual-listing strategy demonstrates strong strategic foresight, serving as a core supporting measure aligned with its globalization, technological transformation, and brand upgrading. By leveraging the A-share market to deepen its domestic market presence and solidify its foundational base in China, while utilizing the H-share market to connect with global capital and empower overseas expansion, it establishes a dual-capital-driven framework characterized by "deep domestic cultivation and global breakthrough."

From a capital perspective, the Hong Kong stock market attracts top-tier global institutional investors and exhibits stronger market-driven and international characteristics. It can effectively optimize a company's shareholding structure, enhance its international brand influence and recognition in overseas markets, and provide robust capital backing for cross-border M&A, international technological cooperation, and global talent recruitment.

Beyond capital empowerment, this H-share fundraising precisely aligns with the company's long-term core strategy, with key investments directed toward the R&D of AI technologies in ophthalmology, the development of a digital ecosystem, the expansion of its global ophthalmic medical network, and the replenishment of working capital. Leveraging the sustained capital-generating capacity of its dual-capital platforms, Aier Eye Hospital will accelerate the full-scenario deployment of "AI + Ophthalmology," continuously upgrade its intelligent diagnostic and therapeutic systems and digital quality control frameworks, and establish differentiated core competitive barriers through technological innovation. This will drive the company's comprehensive upgrade from a traditional medical service provider to a global, intelligent, full-lifecycle eye health platform.

The synergistic resonance of the dual capital markets will serve as the core engine for Aier Eye Hospital's high-quality growth in the next cycle.

Reviewing Aier Eye Hospital's 17-year development trajectory, its path to breakthrough has never been about trend-following growth driven solely by industry tailwinds. Instead, it has been defined by proactive breakthroughs achieved through multiple rounds of precise self-iteration and the continuous expansion of industry boundaries. Following its A-share listing in 2009, the company leveraged its proprietary tiered chain model to resolve the chronic "small, fragmented, and disorganized" challenges plaguing private ophthalmology, ultimately securing absolute market dominance in China. In 2017, it expanded overseas against prevailing trends, stepping out of the hyper-competitive domestic landscape and establishing a firm foothold in mature European and American markets through sophisticated medical operational capabilities, thereby constructing an exclusive global network moat. As scale-driven dividends plateaued, Aier Eye Hospital pioneered the deployment of full-scenario AI applications in ophthalmology, successfully upgrading its core from "scale-driven healthcare" to "technology-driven healthcare." Today, its push for a Hong Kong listing and the implementation of an A+H dual-platform strategy further bridge capital gaps, providing essential support for global expansion and breakthroughs in technological R&D.

Unlike the development path of most private healthcare enterprises that emphasize marketing and short-term profitability, Aier Eye Hospital has forged a unique growth trajectory characterized by "standardized models, global layout, full-cycle services, and proprietary technologies".

Compared to the developmental constraints of most industry peers confined to single-region and single-business models, the establishment of the A+H dual capital platform serves as Aier Eye Hospital's ultimate trump card for differentiated competition. Going forward, its growth logic will no longer hinge on the mere accumulation of clinic locations or the expansion of clinical service volume. Instead, it will leverage the synergy of global medical resources, empowerment from an AI technology ecosystem, and dual support from both capital markets to achieve a comprehensive leap in clinical quality, research capabilities, and global brand value. As a defining leader in the ophthalmic healthcare sector across China and worldwide, Aier Eye Hospital will continue to provide a benchmark model for the scalable, specialized, technology-driven, and international expansion of private healthcare.