GE Healthcare Considers Selling China Business Stake

According to foreign media reports, GE Healthcare is considering selling a portion of its shares in its China division, which has approximately 7,000 employees across multiple R&D and manufacturing bases, and its business scope includes imaging and radiopharmaceuticals.

Bloomberg reported that the company is currently in the early stages of exploring transaction options, which could ultimately increase its total asset value in the country to billions of dollars.

According to GE Healthcare's annual report, sales revenue in the Chinese market for 2024 is approximately $2.4 billion, making it the third-largest market after the United States and Europe. However, sales in the region have decreased by 15% compared to the previous year, affecting all business sectors.

GE Healthcare attributed this decline to several factors in 2023, partly due to the economic stimulus measures in China during the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a growth of 10% that year, as well as the ongoing anti-corruption campaign in China tightening hospital spending. Other imaging giants like Philips and Siemens Healthineers also experienced similar annual declines.

Recently, with the imposition of new tariffs on trade between the United States and China, as well as the ongoing escalation of export restrictions on materials like rare earth minerals, GE Healthcare earlier this year revised its financial forecast for 2025 downward, despite its revenue exceeding expectations.

In April of this year, the company stated that it would strive to reduce the total volume of cross-Pacific freight affected by tariffs and promote more localized production and distribution in its international supply chain.

At the same time, the domestic market announced an anti-dumping investigation against international CT tube manufacturers—although the leadership of General Electric Healthcare stated that they expect this investigation will not have a significant impact on their business in China.

Regarding rare earth minerals, GE Healthcare relies heavily on gadolinium from China, which is an essential component of its MRI contrast agent portfolio, including Clariscan and Omniscan injectables for image enhancement.

Meanwhile, according to a Reuters report on August 20, as China reaches new trade agreements with the European Union and the United States, the export volume of specific metals used in magnets has reached its peak this summer.