Only 40 per cent BeatO’s female users are from metros whereas the majority share of 60 per cent belong to tier 2, 3, 4 and beyond
Of its 2 million total user base, BeatO, digital care platform for controlling and reversing diabetes has observed 20x growth in the number of female users in the last 5 years.
9 per cent of these women belong to the age group of 18 to 25 years, followed by 16 per cent in the age group of 26 to 35 years, 18 per cent from 36-45 years, the largest segment of 25 per cent are in 46 to 55 years age group, 19 per cent are 56-65 years and remaining 13 per cent are from over 65 years age group.
Only 40 per cent BeatO’s female users are from metros whereas the majority share of 60 per cent belong to tier 2, 3, 4 and beyond. This number reflects increased adoption of technology for healthcare, among females residing in Bharat. While a recent study conducted by experts from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the Indian Statistical Institute, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, and Harvard University revealed that Indian women suffer gender bias while accessing health care and gender stereotypes prevent women from voicing their health problems, BeatO is successfully breaking this barrier and providing its female users accessible affordable diabetes care through its app and digital technology.
Gautam Chopra, Founder and CEO, BeatO commented, “Healthcare has traditionally neglected females from its cover unfortunately. Today, mobile phones and the internet have reached the grassroots of India, especially women in smaller towns and cities. Now with the advent of health-tech, this is an opportunity to reach out to more women than ever before and empower them to make decisions concerning their health. Technology has the potential to improve the quality of life for everyone, in every nook and corner of the country, so we are glad to see the uptick in the number of female users coming to BeatO from all corners of India. We expect an exponential increase in our female users in the near future as well who will go on to become the flag bearers of the much needed health-tech revolution in India.”
“As per Nielsen’s Bharat 2.0 Internet study, 1 in every 3 females in rural India is actively using the internet. Female users’ growth in the last 2 years is a whopping 61 per cent as compared to male users whose numbers grew at 24 per cent. With the government and private players like us bringing a lot more emphasis on women adopting technology, we hope that Indian women will be a part of the mainstream population with access to best in class affordable health care.” He added.
BeatO had conducted a survey on ‘Gender differences in accessing and utilising digital diabetes support platforms in India: Analysis of one million (10,33,148) users’ on their platform. The results of the survey were published with the International Diabetes Federation in 2022.
The findings revealed that though the prevalence of diabetes among women (8.4 per cent), is only slightly lower than that among men (9.1 per cent) yet women face many more hurdles in the accessibility and utilisation of digital care. Whilst there has been a very strong uplift in the number of women on BeatO recently, but still with just ~27 per cent of the users being female, BeatO expects to witness an even sharper increase in the coming years as there is still a considerable gender gap in accessing and utilising digital health platforms in India for female users.
Among females, the mean age of women accessing BeatO was 48.24 years; the majority had T2DM (95 per cent) with a mean duration of 9.42 years. The majority of females belong to the metro (40 per cent), followed by tier-IV (32 per cent), tier-II/tier III (28 per cent).