Another disparity is the initial price of compact systems compared to handhelds. Handheld systems had an average selling price (ASP) of $3,900 in 2020, which is forecast to drop to $3,600 by 2025. This is substantially less than the $18,600 ASP of compact systems in 2020, which is forecast to increase to $18,900 by 2025. It means that for each compact system sold, there needs to be nearly five handheld systems sold to generate the same amount of revenue. It is even more when considering that mid-range and premium compact systems are sold for upward of $30,000.

From war to wards
When forecasting the future of the compact ultrasound market, it can be helpful to reflect on its origins. Over 20 years ago, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded a DARPA grant to ATL Ultrasound (former parent company to SonoSite) with the objective of creating an ultrasound system able to be used in war at a trauma patient's side. It resulted in the world’s first POC, and first compact, ultrasound system, the SonoSite 180. Since the introduction of the SonoSite 180, the continued market education of the virtues of point-of-care ultrasound, initially led by Fujifilm SonoSite with many of the established ultrasound vendors following suit, has enabled compact ultrasound to evolve from its war trench origins to a product utilised by healthcare professionals across multiple care specialties and care settings to improve the patient experience.
The use of compact systems has been predominantly within the POC market, with cart systems mainly used in the traditional ultrasound markets; radiology, cardiology and women’s health. However, the use of compact systems has expanded into these traditional clinical applications. Our latest report on the ultrasound equipment market shows that around half of compact systems sold in 2020 were to the POC market, with over a third to the traditional markets and the remainder to specialty markets, such as veterinary.

As well as an expansion in the market applications for compact systems over the years, there has been strong development of the technical capabilities as well. Whereas image quality used to be more limited in older compact systems, this is becoming less and less of an issue. So much so that the latest compact systems offer comparable, and in some cases better, image quality than cart systems of an equivalent price. Whilst some cart systems are designed to be more portable, such as the Resona I9 from Mindray, carts do not compare to the portability offered by compact systems. What is crucial when comparing compact systems to carts, is that whilst the portability of the ultrasound system will be favourable for some customers, the image quality must not be compromised.

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