Company: Abbott Laboratories
Industry: Medical Equipment and Devices
Sector: Health Care
Home country:United States
Host country: Chile, Colombia
Market Entry For Medical Devices In Latin America
Project Proposal Summary:
In the world there are about 27,000 manufacturers of medical devices, dedicated to manufacture about 10,000 different categories of products for clinical use and health (Lepakhin, 2013). Market demand all sorts of furniture, surgical instruments, orthopedic parts and components for hospital technology and equipment.
However, the supply does not reach to the great demand for these products in emerging markets like Latin American. 90 percent of medical items that are sold at the national level are of foreign origin (Aslan, 2012).
Through this lens, it is clear to see that the possibility of increased growth and market-share represents an interesting opportunity for the global pharmaceutical industry. Abbott should take advantage of these economic opportunities and invest more in Latin America. It should be noted that they have begun to do exactly that through key acquisitions within the industry.
We choose Chile and Colombia as host countries over some of the larger markets such as Brazil and Mexico because they already have a sizable health devices market established through imports. Rather than create more competition for ourselves, we decided to enter countries who are still in the early, underdeveloped stages of the health devices market.
Questions
1. Any trade agreements between United States and those Latin American countries (Chile and Colombia)? If any, how such agreement(s) may affect the company's doing business in the region?
2. Explain the trade agreement and any information about the trade agreement between this countries.