Dental News - Amazon gunning for dental supply industry

Amazon gunning for dental supply industry

Amazon created quite a stir in the pharmaceutical industry with reports that they were looking to penetrate the multibillion-dollar industry. Now, the “everything conglomerate” seems to be refocusing itself on the dental supply industry. (Photograph: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock)

Dental Tribune International

Mon. 18. December 2017

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LEIPZIG, Germany: Earlier this year it was reported that Amazon is potentially expanding into the pharmaceutical industry. Although the news was met with some market fear, it was thought that the heavily regulated industry would be able to prevent the conglomerate from doing any real damage. In a report recently published by Morgan Stanley, it was stated that Amazon was now gunning for the dental supply business and some of the industry’s biggest players have now been given a shake-up.

Upon the release of the report, Henry Schein and Patterson stocks were both down by 3.25 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively. According to unconfirmed reports, Amazon has been accessing critical products from Dentsply Sirona and would work as a business-to-business supply chain—a move that would directly affect the bottom line of the aforementioned companies, as well as many others.

In order to combat the uncertainty and in an attempt to settle the market, a spokesman for Henry Schein said, "We are unaware of any market-leading dental manufacturer that has a direct relationship with Amazon. We believe that at this time, Amazon is a minor player in the dental consumables markets, with insignificant market penetration."

However, as reported by CNBC, analyst Steve Beuchaw wrote that, "While Amazon makes up a small share of average total spending both backward- (4 percent) and forward-looking (5 percent), it was used by 34 percent of practitioners in our survey in the last year, suggesting it is making inroads into many practices."

With Amazon’s long reach and the power to dictate the way business is conducted, it is most likely going to become the second private firm, after Apple, to become a trillion-dollar company. Having influence in the dental supply industry could well be a move that speeds up that process.