The medtech industry: AI platforms, surgical robots and India's window

02How big is the medtech industry worldwide?

Nobody agrees on the size, and the reason is definitions. Some estimates count only devices. Others add hospital furniture, dental equipment or services. Four published figures for 2025 sit between about $570 billion and $790 billion.

The growth rate matters more than the level. BCG's figures imply a little over 4% a year between 2022 and 2025. Fortune Business Insights projects 6.9% a year to 2034. EY expects the industry's commercial leaders to grow revenue by 6% to 7%. Only the broadest definition reaches 9%.

So be wary of any pitch that calls this a double-digit industry. Medtech as a whole grows at about the pace of hospital budgets; the double-digit growth sits in a few pockets. Robotic surgery is one, where Intuitive's procedure count rose 18% in 2025. Home monitoring and some AI software are others.

Medtech as a whole grows at about the pace of hospital budgets; the double-digit growth sits in a few pockets.

North America is the largest buyer, with about 38% of the market in 2025 by Fortune Business Insights' count. India, at roughly $16 billion, is a little over 2% of the global total on BCG's numbers.

04Which parts of the market earn the most?

Medtech is a collection of businesses with very different economics. The useful split is by how each one gets paid, rather than by clinical speciality.

The platform and implant rows earn the most. Their customers rarely switch, because changing means retraining surgeons or replacing a system. Disposables and contract manufacturing earn the least, since a hospital buyer can compare prices across many qualified suppliers.

Software is the newest row and the one most often oversold. Wearable monitors are an example of hardware that behaves like software, with a sensor replaced every few weeks; our piece on wearable medical devices looks at the evidence behind them.

Most Indian manufacturers sit in the disposables and contract rows today. That is a sensible place to start, because volumes are large and approvals simpler. It is a poor place to stay, because tenders push prices down every year.

06How do the market leaders make money?

Three companies show three different answers. We use them to illustrate business models, and none of this is a stock recommendation.

Medtronic shows what breadth buys

Medtronic sells across cardiovascular, neuroscience, surgery and diabetes, so no single product decides its year. Cardiovascular alone brought in about $14 billion in fiscal 2026, up 12%. Its gross margin held at 65%.

Breadth costs speed. Medtronic filed in fiscal 2026 for US clearance of its Hugo surgical robot in general surgery and gynaecology, a market Intuitive has served for over two decades. It is also separating its diabetes business, MiniMed, through a public listing. A broad portfolio protects revenue, but it makes winning a fast-moving category harder.

Intuitive Surgical rents the robot and sells the instruments

Intuitive is the cleanest example of a platform. It had about 11,100 da Vinci systems installed at the end of 2025. Surgeons performed more than 3.1 million procedures on them that year, up 18%, and every procedure uses instruments only Intuitive supplies.

As a result, 84% of its 2025 revenue, about $8.5 billion, was recurring. The machine itself is often not sold: 51% of 2025 placements were under operating leases. A hospital that would balk at a large capital purchase can start paying per operation instead.

A hospital that would balk at a large capital purchase can start paying per operation instead.

That is the model markets reward most. It also concentrates risk. A cut in what insurers pay for robotic procedures, or a credible cheaper rival, would hit the whole stream of instrument sales at once.

GE HealthCare sells big machines and the service behind them

GE HealthCare earns most of its money from scanners, monitors and the contrast agents used in scans. Its 2025 revenue grew 4.8% to $20.6 billion. Its adjusted EBIT margin slipped to 15.3% from 16.3%, which the company put down mainly to tariffs.

Capital equipment ties revenue to hospital budgets and to trade policy. GE HealthCare's answer is to sell service contracts and software against its installed base, so that each scanner keeps earning after the sale.

Put side by side, the three explain why investors pay so differently for companies of similar scale. Revenue that repeats with every procedure is worth far more than revenue that must be won again in each budget cycle.

08How big is India's medtech market, and how much is imported?

The estimates differ by almost a third. That gap is worth understanding before any figure goes into a business plan.

EY put the market at about $12 billion in 2023-24. BCG, working with the industry body AiMeD and the Kalam Institute of Health Technology, put it at about $16 billion in 2025. Rubix Industry Insights uses $15.2 billion for 2025, and Mordor Intelligence about $17 billion.

Forecasts for 2030 spread further. The government's National Medical Devices Policy targets $50 billion, and Rubix projects $50.1 billion, which needs growth of about 27% a year. BCG expects domestic demand of $30 billion to $32 billion, at 13% to 15% a year. Its headline $41 billion to $44 billion adds exports and contract manufacturing. We use BCG's demand range as the planning case, because its growth rate matches what the market has done since 2022.

Import dependence is where the sources disagree most. EY estimated that 80% to 85% of devices in use were imported. Rubix puts FY2025 imports at about $8.6 billion, meeting 70% to 80% of demand. BCG finds imports roughly flat at about $9 billion since 2022, while local production rose from about $2 billion to $7 billion.

On BCG's numbers, local makers now supply about 45% of domestic demand. Both pictures can hold at once. The imported share stays high in large equipment and advanced implants. It has fallen fast in consumables, simpler equipment and machines that multinationals now assemble in India.

Two things stand out. Consumables are about a fifth of what India buys but nearly half of what it sells abroad, so this is where Indian makers already compete. Large capital equipment, at $3.2 billion, and monitoring and critical care, at $3.6 billion, are the two biggest sub-segments and lean heavily on imported technology.

Exports were about $4 billion in FY2025. On BCG's count that is roughly 1% of world medtech exports, against $75 billion for the US and $48 billion for China.

10What advantages does India really have?

Some of India's advantages are real and measurable. Others are claims a careful investor should discount.

• Labour cost. BCG estimates Indian labour costs at 60% to 80% below the US and 40% to 50% below China. In assembly-heavy products such as consumables and monitors, that edge lasts.
• A consumables base that already exports. Indian companies sell syringes, catheters and disposables worldwide. Consumables made up nearly half of India's device exports in 2025.
• Domestic demand with a public payer behind it. BCG counts more than 43 crore Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY cards issued and over 10 crore people with diabetes. Insurance is widening the pool of patients whose devices someone will pay for.
• Engineering talent. India's electronics, embedded software and IT services workforce maps directly onto device design and regulated software.

The weak spots are just as clear. BCG finds Indian medtech firms spend 2% to 4% of revenue on research, against 10% to 15% in the US and 15% to 20% in China. India holds about 3% of global medtech patents.

Indian firms account for under 1% of US FDA approvals from 2010 to 2025. All of those came through the 510(k) route, which covers products similar to ones already on the market.

Cost is an advantage in making things to someone else's design. It is a much weaker one in inventing them. That distinction runs through every decision below.

12What do investors pay for in a device company?

Public markets give one clear reference point. Intuitive Surgical's market value in September 2026 was roughly $130 billion to $139 billion, by the count of market-data services. That is about 13 to 14 times its 2025 revenue, for a business with 84% recurring revenue and 21% growth.

Medtronic has more than three times Intuitive's revenue, and size is not what earns the premium. Predictability does: revenue that recurs with each procedure, protected by approvals and switching costs. Five things move the price an investor will pay.

• The share of revenue that repeats. Consumables, service and software as a percentage of the total. Ask for it by product line, never as a company average.
• The approvals held. A CE mark or FDA clearance opens export markets and takes a rival years to match. A CDSCO licence alone confines a company to India.
• Clinical evidence. Published outcome data supports a price premium and earns surgeon loyalty.
• The installed base and its trend. How many systems are in use, at which hospitals, and whether use per system is rising.
• Exposure to price controls and tenders. India capped coronary stent prices in 2017 and knee implant prices later that year, and public tenders reward the lowest bid. Products sold this way deserve a lower multiple.

For unlisted Indian companies, the price usually rests on milestones instead: an approval granted, the first hospital customers, a first export order to a regulated market. A startup that has not costed its route to approval is asking investors to price a hope. Our due diligence work tests these points before a term sheet is signed.

14Which medtech risks are overstated?

• AI replacing radiologists. Authorised AI tools are mostly built to assist a clinician, and demand for imaging keeps rising. AI changes who earns on a scan more than it shrinks the number of scans.
• Cheap copies wiping out margins. A copied device still needs its own approval, surgeon training and a service network, which slows imitation in implants and platforms. In disposables the threat is real, which is why that end earns least.
• Cyber attacks making connected devices unsellable. The risk is real and rising, and the FDA now expects cybersecurity plans in device submissions. It has become a cost of doing business and a filter on weak entrants.

16What should Indian device makers and investors do now?

Steps for Indian device makers

• Pick a segment where cost wins. Consumables, diagnostic reagents, monitors and simpler equipment reward India's cost base. Large imaging and advanced implants need years of evidence and a service network before they pay.
• Design the repeat revenue with the product. A device sold once at a thin margin rarely builds a company. Plan the consumable, service contract or software licence before the first unit ships.
• Plan approvals for two markets at once. Build one technical file to meet CDSCO and a CE mark or FDA standard together. Doing them in sequence doubles the wait.
• Use the component and clinical-study money. The Strengthening of Medical Device Industry scheme pays towards component plants and clinical studies, the two costs that most often stall a small maker. Our capital grants team matches projects to the right window.
• Price on lifetime value, not on the tender. A hospital that pays more upfront for lower running costs is a better customer than one buying the cheapest box. Our pricing advisory work builds that case with you.
• Do not borrow against incentives. Treat PLI or state incentive receipts as upside until the cash has arrived at least once.

Questions investors should ask first

• What share of revenue repeats, by product line, and is that share growing?
• Which approvals does the company hold, and which markets do they open?
• How much of the bill of materials is imported, and what happens to margin if duties or the rupee move?
• Is any product exposed to a price cap, or to a public tender that sets the price?
• How many months of cash does the company hold against a realistic approval timeline?
• Is the design owned in India, licensed from abroad, or someone else's product built under contract?

Device companies that answer all six cleanly tend to have shorter conversations with investors. Those that cannot should close the gaps before a round opens, because the buyer's diligence team will find them. SRF works with founders and investors in medtech on exactly these questions.

18Method and sources

This report was prepared by SRF Capital Studio's research desk and checked against public sources in October 2026. Market sizes depend on definition, so we name each source and show the range rather than pick one. Company figures come from filings, and figures we could not confirm were removed.

• Fortune Business Insights: Medical Devices Market report (2026).
• EY: Pulse of the MedTech Industry report (September 2025).
• BCG, AiMeD and Kalam Institute of Health Technology: Poised for Takeoff, MedTech in India (May 2026).
• The Business Research Company: Medical Equipment Global Market Report (2025).
• EY: study of India's medtech industry (June 2025).
• Rubix Industry Insights: India medical devices industry report, as reported in the press (February 2026).
• Mordor Intelligence: India medical devices market estimate (2025).
• Medtronic: fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2026 results, SEC Form 8-K (3 June 2026).
• Intuitive Surgical: Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025 (2026).
• GE HealthCare: fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results (4 February 2026).
• Press Information Bureau: Cabinet approval of the National Medical Devices Policy (26 April 2023).
• Lok Sabha: written replies on the PLI scheme for medical devices and on medical device parks (August 2025 and July 2026), as reported by Indian Pharma Post.
• Department of Pharmaceuticals: guidelines for the Scheme for Strengthening of Medical Device Industry (8 November 2024) and for the Promotion of Medical Device Parks.
• CDSCO: Medical Devices Rules 2017 licensing notifications (2020 to 2023).
• US Food and Drug Administration: AI-Enabled Medical Device List, as counted by independent trackers (2026); predetermined change control plan guidance (December 2024); ethylene oxide sterilisation information.
• The Tribune: reports on the Nalagarh medical device park (2023 to 2025).
• AuntMinnie and Radiology Business: coverage of China's rare earth export controls (April 2025).
• Sleep Review, CBS News and MassDevice: coverage of the Philips Respironics recall, settlement and consent decree (2021 to 2024).
• Market-data services: Intuitive Surgical market value (September 2026).