A key market for the medical device industry showed some strong signs of life today, following sobering economic news out of Europe yesterday.
Japan, the world’s 3rd-largest economy and 2nd-largest medical device market, reported that its gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 3.5% during the 1st quarter and is up 0.9% from the previous quarter. Analysts had predicted a 2.8% annualized growth rate and 0.7% growth for the quarter.
The medical device market in Japan is $25.5 billion, making it 2.5 times larger than the critical emerging market of China, according to Pacific Bridge Medical. It is also home to 15 of the 100 largest medical device companies in the world, according to research conducted by MassDevice.com for our annual Big 100 report on the world’s largest medtech makers.
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Yesterday France, 1 of the largest economies in the European Union and the 2nd-largest medical device market in Europe, slipped into a recession for the 1st time since 1999. The GDP of France contracted 0.2% compared to the previous quarter and 0.4% from the same period last year and has now contracted 2 quarters in a row, the traditional benchmark for a diagnosis of recession.
