United Imaging Reports RMB 13.8 Billion Revenue and 51% Overseas Growth in 2025: Key Drivers Behind Its Success

After the market close on April 28, United Imaging finally released its 2025 annual report.

Relevant data show that United Imaging achieved annual revenue of RMB 13.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 33.98%; net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company reached RMB 1.869 billion, up 48.14% year on year. The performance of its core business was particularly robust, with net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company after deducting non-recurring gains and losses amounting to RMB 1.770 billion, representing a year-on-year surge of 75.18%, significantly outperforming industry peers.

A 30% year-on-year increase in revenue amid a market downturn is already eye-catching, but the growth rate of net profit excluding non-recurring items outpacing revenue by more than 40 percentage points is even more striking.

Amid Overall Pressure on the Medical Device Industry, Where Does United Imaging’s Growth Come From?

Deconstructing United Imaging’s profit growth rate, we can identify three structural variables from its financial statements.

First is the snowball effect of service revenue. In the first half of 2025, United Imaging’s maintenance and repair services business generated RMB 1.708 billion in revenue, a year-on-year increase of 25.96%, with its share of total revenue rising to 12.38%. The gross profit margin of the service business has long remained above 60%, significantly higher than that of equipment sales.

Behind this data lies the triumph of United Imaging’s volume-driven strategy. With a now-comprehensive service chain, each additional CT, MR, or PET-CT system sold locks in a stream of high-margin passive income for the company over the coming years.

It is worth noting that the growth in service revenue did not begin only after the centralized procurement of medical equipment; United Imaging has already maintained a consistent annual growth rate of approximately 30% for several years. Compared with the 25%-30% share of service revenue seen among the “GPS” companies (GE Healthcare, Philips, and Siemens Healthineers), United Imaging still has room for growth in this segment, which will become a key driver of future profit expansion.

Secondly, the weighting of high-gross-margin overseas regions has increased significantly. In 2025, United Imaging’s full-year overseas revenue reached RMB 3.431 billion, a year-on-year increase of 51.39%, accounting for 24.86% of its total revenue.

Regionally, North America’s annual revenue grew by over 55%, Europe by nearly 50%, the Asia-Pacific region by more than 40%, and emerging markets by over 80%. Gross profit margins in North America and Europe are generally higher than those in emerging markets. As the weight of these two high-margin regions in overseas revenue continues to rise, the contribution of overseas operations to overall profitability has shifted from merely “boosting revenue” to “enhancing quality.”

Finally, the net cash flow from operating activities turned positive. Last year, this figure stood at RMB 2.679 billion, compared with a negative RMB 619 million in the same period of the previous year. Within one year, cash flow improved by nearly RMB 3.3 billion.

There are three structural factors underlying the cash flow dynamics. First, in 2025, China’s medical equipment renewal policy entered a phase of normalized implementation, with public hospitals demonstrating significantly improved funding availability and payment pacing compared to the previous year, which directly accelerated cash collection cycles.

Second, the proportion of revenue from high-gross-margin overseas regions has increased. Since payment cycles for customers in Europe and North America are typically shorter than those in some emerging markets, the optimization of regional structure has also driven an overall improvement in collection quality.

Third, contract liabilities increased from RMB 2.139 billion to RMB 2.975 billion, a year-on-year growth of 39%, indicating that advance payments for orders on hand are rising and customer willingness to pay has not weakened.

However, it is also worth noting that United Imaging’s year-end accounts receivable balance reached RMB 6.035 billion, a 28% year-on-year increase, with its growth rate approaching that of revenue. Even after providing RMB 445 million for bad debt reserves, the carrying amount remained as high as RMB 5.59 billion.

The surge in accounts receivable is inherently linked to revenue growth. United Imaging’s 2025 revenue reached RMB 13.8 billion, with accounts receivable of RMB 6 billion corresponding to a days sales outstanding (DSO) of approximately 160 days, which falls within the normal range for the large medical equipment industry.

The issue here is that United Imaging’s accounts receivable aged over one year amounted to RMB 1.39 billion, accounting for 23% of the total balance, a year-on-year increase of approximately 2 percentage points; accounts receivable aged over three years rose from RMB 102 million to RMB 342 million, representing a 2.4-fold increase. The aging shift indicates that the collection of outstanding debts is lagging behind the generation of new receivables, leading to a gradual accumulation of existing risks.

The core reason for this phenomenon lies in the adjustment of the customer structure. As United Imaging expands into county-level grassroots markets and emerging overseas markets, differentiation in customer creditworthiness is inevitable. In some regions, fiscal payment capacity is relatively weak, leading to inherently longer collection cycles—a issue that is difficult to resolve in the short term.

However, if long-aging accounts receivable continue to grow, provisioning pressure will rise non-linearly. Medical device companies must carefully reconsider whether to continue intensifying competition in the primary healthcare sector in the coming year.

Let’s take another look at United Imaging’s product line matrix.

Over the past fifteen years, United Imaging has established China’s only vertically integrated, independently developed system in the medical imaging industry, covering all three tiers: “complete systems – core components – key electronic components.”

In the MR field, 100% of core components, including superconducting magnets, gradient systems, RF systems, and spectrometers, are independently developed. In the CT field, X-ray tubes, high-voltage generators, and detectors are all self-developed; 2–5 MHu X-ray tubes have achieved mass production, while prototype tubes exceeding 8 MHu have completed development. In the MI field, PET detector chips and dedicated crystal technologies are entirely self-developed.

Beyond its past achievements, United Imaging has three key highlights in 2025. First, the launch of its photon-counting CT; second, its entry into the ultrasound market, completing the final piece of its product portfolio; and third, its expansion into surgery, marking the initial formation of an integrated diagnosis and treatment model.

In August 2025, China’s first photon-counting CT system, the “uCT Ultima,” received regulatory approval for market launch. The uCT Ultima reduces detector pixel area to one-ninth of that in conventional systems, achieves a spatial resolution on the order of 0.2 mm, lowers radiation dose by 60% to 70%, and simultaneously outputs multi-energy spectral information during routine scans, thereby advancing CT from structural imaging to functional imaging.

In the same month as its approval, United Imaging’s photon-counting CT system was installed at Fudan University Zhongshan Hospital and Shanghai Ruijin Hospital, initiating clinical research validation. It subsequently won a bid at Xiamen Union Hospital, successfully embarking on its commercialization journey.

In November of the same year, United Imaging officially launched its uSONIQUE series of ultrasound products, entering a market with a penetration rate exceeding 70% that is deeply dominated by early movers such as Mindray.

The core logic behind United Imaging’s approach to ultrasound is not merely “filling product gaps,” but rather reconstructing value through AI. Public information shows that United Imaging’s pioneering AI Stream, an intelligent workflow covering the entire process, has reduced single-plane scanning time from over a minute in traditional methods to approximately 10 seconds, boosting efficiency by 88%.

China faces a shortage of at least 150,000 ultrasound physicians, making AI-powered ultrasound a critical structural pain point. United Imaging has invested over six years and more than RMB 600 million to enter this sector, betting not on short-term market share but on the data flywheel advantage that early movers will gain once AI is truly integrated into ultrasound workflows.

Surgery represents a strategic extension of the “diagnosis-feeding-treatment” model. Currently, United Imaging’s surgical portfolio includes surgical robots, endoscopes, and other products. Leveraging the nationwide installed base and clinical trust established by its diagnostic equipment, United Imaging has significantly lowered the entry barrier for its surgical devices into hospitals, thereby creating opportunities for rapid deployment within healthcare institutions.

However, Mindray has established substantial channel barriers in the ultrasound sector, while the endoscopic surgical robot market faces long-term monopoly by da Vinci. Moreover, new product lines typically require a prolonged conversion period from regulatory approval to generating stable revenue.

Furthermore, most of United Imaging’s surgical products are in the early stages of clinical application validation. The conversion efficiency from installation to mass production and the iteration speed based on clinical feedback both require a longer time window for evaluation.

In the past, the market positioned United Imaging as a beneficiary of domestic substitution. The benchmark was market share: how many foreign brands it surpassed in CT, and how many Tier-3A hospitals it entered with MR. This is a story of the rivalry between a Chinese company and GPS in the Chinese market.

In 2025, this coordinate system began to loosen.

The annual report disclosed a set of key figures: cumulative installations in North America exceeded 640 units/systems, covering 90% of U.S. state-level administrative regions; European operations spanned 24 countries, with the Rotterdam headquarters officially opened; penetration rate among India’s leading private hospital groups surpassed 90%; and Turkey installed the first overseas 5T MRI scanner.

Behind the figures lies United Imaging’s new role: it is no longer merely vying for market share against the “GPS” trio in China, but engaging them in direct competition on the global stage, and has even established a dominant advantage in emerging markets.

As overseas markets gradually become a significant component of United Imaging’s business, its valuation logic appears to require some adjustment. A company primarily focused on domestic substitution within the Chinese market faces fundamentally different market size, growth ceilings, and risk exposures compared to one competing globally with the “GPS” trio (GE Healthcare, Philips, and Siemens Healthineers) in more than 90 countries.

The overseas segment, accounting for 22% with a 55% growth rate, is not the endgame but rather a new starting point for a global company.