Hello, everyone, and welcome to the live analyst presentations and the live Q&A sessions for today for the first quarter of 2024 from Bumrungrad Hospital Public Company Ltd. So I would like to first thank you very much everyone for your time joining here in person. We are happy to see you all in person today at the hospital. And we also today have the foreign analysts joining online as well. So we have uploaded the presentation slide on the website already on our page this morning, so you may check the slide online first. And the agenda for today, we will start with the analyst presentations by our management, and then we may start the Q&A sessions.
So today I would like to welcome our management that are here with us today. We have Khun Neil Sorrentino, Corporate Chief Strategy Officer, and we have Khun Artirat Charukitpipat, CEO , and we have Khun Oraphan Buamuang, Chief Financial Officer. We have many management joining to answer to your questions as well. We have Khun David Boucher, Chief Executive Officer, Bumrungrad International Hospital, Phuket and Market. And we have Khun Rajeev Rajan, Chief Business Development Officer, and we have Dr. Nipat Kulabkaw, Chief Operating Officer, and we have Khun Daniel Kastner, Chief Transformation Officer, and we have Khun Wisut Ua-Anant, Chief Digital MarTech Officer. So without further ado, I would like to pass on the presentation to Khun Neil Sorrentino to talk about the key takeaways in the first quarter.
Thank you, Kap. [Foreign language] . Good morning, all. We have a lot of management overhead here, don't we, Rajeev? A lot of overhead, but all these people are here to answer your questions, both online and in person. It's great to be able to do this again now that COVID is in the rearview mirror, although there has been a little bit of spikes about COVID here recently in Thailand, but now it's nothing more than a bad flu at worst. At best, it's just sniffles. So that's, that's good to know. We're not seeing very, very many COVID patients at all admitted in the hospital anymore. We never did have so many, but now we have very, very few as a result.
Well, let's get on with the details of the quarter, the obligatory disclaimer, my own personal disclaimer: I own no shares of Bumrungrad stock, for your information. For the first quarter, it's difficult to be able to imagine the kind of quarter that we had, given the fact that Ramadan for us in Q1 was more than a simple majority of the total Ramadan Eid days for this year. We had 21 Ramadan days in the quarter, and typically when that happens, it reflects a downslide of volume. While we had less volume in than prior year, we also had higher revenue than prior year from the Middle East, up 4.9%.
So when you look at the diversity of our business, what drove the earnings for the quarter and the purity of the earnings for the quarter, what drove that was very, very good revenue intensity, volume from a number of other diverse markets beyond the Middle East, although the Middle East was quite supported, even though we had Ramadan. And the revenue purification, I like to talk about that because it means a lot to us. When we talk about revenue purification, we are talking about the diversity of that revenue from different markets and the intensity of that revenue. Intensity, meaning for those that may not recall, intensity for us means resource consumption per patient. And the combination of those things created what turned out to be a superb quarter. Please go to the slide on revenue, if you would, to show you what I'm talking about.
This slide. Now, you may recall that I guided single digit top-line revenue growth for the quarter, and I was asked in the live stream Q&A, "Well, really, what does that mean?" I said, "Well, it means somewhere between 1.1% and 9.9%." Some of you may recall that. Well, it turns out it was 8% total revenue growth. This is on a consolidated basis. If you look at the net patient revenue, which is BH specific, BIH specific, the medical center, it grew 7.7% of that 8%. But this is the part that's really very interesting for me, is the diversity of the growth of that 8%, 6.1% international, 9% Thai, and double digit, 11.2% expat.
Price increases were 6%, going into 2024. So it's not only about price. I always get that question: Are you driving, are you driving this by price alone? The answer is no. Price is a piece, but it's not the total piece. Go back to the takeaways slide, please. So the trending upward in the quarter, beyond the fact that we were in the middle of Ramadan and Eid, there was positive trending both for revenues, EBITDA, and the margins. Each one of those indicators were all up from what Q1 2023. And for EBITDA, we hit an all-time high of 40.7%. 40.7%. Memory is still working okay. VitalLife recorded almost 12% EBITDA growth for the quarter.
And interestingly, with VitalLife, if you look at the revenue distribution of VitalLife, this thing continues to grow every quarter-over-quarter. 62% or 63% of that revenue was international. David and his team are going to be responsible in Phuket to open up a VitalLife center of excellence there sometime in late June, early July. And as you know, in Phuket, there's a large measure of international visitors there, both semi-retired, retired, or just plain out visitors. We're hoping that we can get a fair market share of that business. But David can talk about Phuket. I've asked him to give you an overall update about Phuket as well.
At the end of this past year, 2023, our second of two dividend payouts were approved by our board, and our annual general meeting shareholders approved a total of THB 4.5 per share. It was the highest dividend payout recorded in the history of the company. Based upon the performance of 2023, that this just happened April 24th. What drove the business? Each one of our verticals, every single one of our verticals, if it wasn't the improvement in revenue, despite the fact the Middle East year-over-year volume was down, it was expat, it was Thai. Our China business, and we'll talk about that. Our China business was up dramatically. Our USA business was up dramatically for the quarter.
China, I think, was THB 188 million, both Thai and international revenue, just for the quarter, a double-digit percentage growth on the China revenue. That vertical now is working for us much, much better, thanks to a lot of people's efforts. I've asked Khun Wisut, this gentleman here in the green shirt at the end. He's going to display for you and discuss for you what we've done during COVID to the present. We hired this good man from AIS, and out of nothing, he will show you what he has created. He and his team of expensive developers have created over the last three years. It's very, very impressive. We will also talk to you about Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Khun Rajeev and I will talk about that, and Myanmar.
These are the negatives, not Saudi, but Kuwait, certainly, Myanmar, certainly, were the negatives for the quarter. We'd like to talk about the positive. We also like to tell you about where we are on issues that have some downside impact, despite the fact it was a great quarter. David will talk about market update and Q2 guidance, I'll get into at the end of, at the end of the session. Let's go through the pieces quickly so you understand the pieces of the quarter. The revenue was slightly down for international, and that's because of Ramadan and because of Kuwait in particular. So they were down 1% on international. Thai, 34 versus 33, it was up. Expat and Thai business was up for the quarter. Next slide. I talked about this already. Very, very diversified, positive, vertical driver of revenue in the quarter. Next slide.
Middle East, as I said to you earlier, was up 4.9% on revenue, down on volume. Indochina was down 1.1%, principally because of Myanmar. Myanmar continues to be a domestic disaster there. You read about it all the time in the papers now. Difficult for people to leave Myanmar, difficult for people to get back into Myanmar. It's a problem. Even though... I don't know, what was the revenue for Myanmar for the quarter, Nim?
Yes. Our revenue, Myanmar revenue for the quarter dropped around 12%. Indochina, if excluding Myanmar, will grow actually 7%.
So for that vertical, Myanmar is in the Indochina vertical for us, it was up that amount if I take out the Myanmar negative year-over-year. And then the all others are listed down there. They were up 17%. All of those other countries collectively were up 17%. Next slide. And there you have the distribution of the 10 nationalities. Our biggest Middle Eastern country now is Qatar. Myanmar is down, as I, as I've mentioned. Bangladesh is up. The UAE, at 9.5%, is just slightly down, although the percentage is almost double-digit. The U.S. was way up. Kuwait, Kuwait was down. This is an interesting one to talk about the diversity and the support up underneath each one of these market verticals.
Kuwait was down THB 200 million, a little over THB 200 million for the quarter year-over-year, and we'll explain what's happening there as we get into these, as we get into these countries more deeply. But despite that, which is why the Middle Eastern revenue Middle Eastern volume was down, to include, of course, the impact of Ramadan. Despite over THB 200 million revenue down quarter-over-quarter, which is at 58.4% number, despite that, we had the kind of quarter that we did. It really does, especially in this example, it really does speak to how well, and how many of our diversified markets are driving the overall business in the company. China was up 23%, Oman, 30%.
That 11% for Kuwait, most of it is expat, some international U.S. travelers, but the majority of that number is expat U.S. nationals here in country that have been coming to Bumrungrad. And really, for the last four or five quarters, it's been this way, and this quarter even was higher for that support. Next slide. 40.7%, I was right. 40.7%, a record high for the company, for the in the history of the company's performance on EBITDA. And you can see the difference in the actual EBITDA change, 22 to 2,676. On NOPAT, the NOPAT margin, again, an increase of almost 4%, 3.8%. But more importantly than that, margins are important, but, you know, can you continue to grow margins in perpetuity?
Of course not. You can't do that. But there'll be a tipping point for every company in reaching the highest margin number. That's important. Margin's important because it tells you about the efficiency of how the company is operated, and it tells you about the purity of the revenue being driven into the organization. But what's more important is the growth of the earnings. That's the key. That's what drives share price. That's what drives confidence in the brand. And speaking of confidence in the brand, for the fourth consecutive year, I don't believe we announced this in November, for the fourth consecutive year, we were voted by Newsweek as the best hospital in Thailand, four years in a row. And this is not a bought award. This is an award that you earn through a rating system.
Four years in a row, the best hospital in Thailand, and the only hospital in Thailand among the top 180 in the world, as ranked by Newsweek. Stunning, four years in a row. Next slide. This speaks for itself. It's pretty uniform and very low ratios between debt and assets, which signifies very, very strong, very, very strong balance sheet performance. Next slide. Cash, you can see the conversion and the variances on cash and cash collected, how we're investing our cash. It grew by three. It went from 3.19 to 3.5. When Oraphan here, and her team, and the treasury department have been looking very, very hard how to increase yield on available cash. Cash from operations was much stronger. Our AR days are, what is it, 54? What is the AR days?
AR days are 54. The principal piece of what drives AR days for us, some companies run 35, some companies run 28, but that's not possible when you take Middle Eastern revenue. They take four to six months to pay you. It's just the way it is, and that's what drives that. But I don't look so much at that because we've never been stuck on Middle Eastern bad debt. I look more at the difference between operating cash, how well, despite the fact that it may take four to six months to get our cash, how well is Rajeev collecting the money? He's only. He's not only responsible to build the business, but to collect the money. And this tells me we're doing a good job at that. Financing is very, very small.
Investing properly so has grown, and operating cash has grown very, very nicely. The difference between the, the numbers when you look at it, net, net, net is about THB 600 million, THB 604 million, something like that. Next slide. VitalLife, I've been showing for the last couple of quarters, last two, three quarters, because, because it's worth showing, it's now becoming less a nominal piece of business as more is becoming a contributory piece of business. And the indicators there are EBITDA, 43.4%, net profit up 11%, EBITDA up almost 12%. Very strong. Are you, are you looking at this, David, when you go to Phuket? Next slide. This is a new slide that I wanted to show you.
So when you look at these company names, it doesn't matter if they're one bed or 5,000 beds, ROA and ROE are the universal indicators of how efficient a company is running. Now, we are best in class on EBITDA per bed. We're best in class on EBITDA margin. We're best in class on NOPAT margin. That you know already, but you don't know these numbers necessarily unless you follow all of these companies. Some are here locally, some are as far as India, Apollo, IHH, you know that Praram 9, BCH. These are a different tier of organization, but it doesn't matter. What matters is the efficiency of how they deploy their equity or their debt, and how well the assets yield. That's what ROA and ROE is all about.
You can see the level of performance. These are not our numbers, these are their numbers. I wanted to show you the numbers that are sourced through public company disclosure, not something we calculated.
Okay, ka. Good morning, ka. Thank you, ka. I would like to present in terms of the financial highlights and financial performance of first quarter 2024, ka. In this slide, you can see that the total revenue increased about 8%, but EBITDA and net profit amount were improved by double-digit when compared to the same period last year, as shown in the first table. The improvement mainly came from both Thai and non-Thai patient increase, as Khun Yu already mentioned, plus cost management program that are implemented continuously in this quarter, ka. This drive the EBITDA and net profit growth by 21.7% and 25.4%, respectively. The EBITDA margin and net profit margin in first quarter this year was 40.7% and 30.2%, respectively.
These are the new high record of the company on the quarterly basis, ka. I will walk you through more detail in the following slide, ka. In terms of the financial performance, total revenue in first quarter was THB 6,576 million, increased from first quarter last year by 8%. Total revenue improvement mainly came from the increase in revenue from hospital operation. Thai patient and non-Thai patient revenue increased by 9% and 7.1%, respectively. In terms of revenue contribution by nationality, in first quarter 2024, the contribution of Thai was 34% and international is 66%, ka. The percent contribution between Thai and international were slightly changed from first quarter last year.
This was mostly due to the increase in revenue from Thai at 9%, slightly above than increase in revenue from non-Thai at about 7.1%, ka. In term of revenue contribution by service, in first quarter this year and first quarter last year, the revenue contribution from inpatient and outpatient service were 51% and 49%, respectively, ka. Inpatient revenue go by 7.7%, and outpatient revenue go by 7.2, ka. In term of revenue contribution by payer type, the government third party contribution in first quarter this year increased to 20% from 19% in first quarter last year, mostly due to revenue from government sponsor increased by 13%, which associate with the Middle East patient revenue increase.
The insurance contribution in first quarter this year increased to 18% from 17% in the same period last year, due to the revenue of insurance for this quarter increased year-over-year by 12%. For self-pay contribution in this year declined to 61% from 63% in previous year, mostly due to revenue from self-pay patient increased at 5.2%, which is lower than revenue growth rate of government, third party payer, and insurance payer, ka. In terms of the EBITDA and EBITDA margin, as a result of increase in revenue and continued cost management program, EBITDA in first quarter this year was THB 2,676 million, improved from same period last year by 21.7%, and with EBITDA margin at 40.7%, ka.
In terms of net profit and net profit margin, net profit of first quarter this year was THB 1,985 million, which improved by 25.4% from first quarter last year. Net profit margin in this quarter improved to 30.2% from 26% in first quarter last year. In terms of the leverage ratio, net debt to EBITDA of first quarter this year was negative at 0.2 times due to low net debt, and net debt to equity was also negative at 0.1 times due to low net debt as well, ka. These are all financial highlights and financial performance of first quarter this year, ka. Thank you, ka.
Today, I would like to update about Bumrungrad hospital operations, [Foreign language]. The first slide. As Khun Yu mentioned in the beginning of the session, this year we received the award from Newsweek and Statista World's Best Hospitals 2024, and this is our fourth consecutive years. We still the only Thai hospital to secure a spot in global rankings. This year, we stand out at 130 out of 250, which is very significant improvement from last year, we got the rank of 182, [Foreign language] . Next slide, I would like to show the commitment of our mission to be the safest hospital. We attain international standard accreditation for our care of international patients seeking medical treatment in Thailand.
This marks at the third consecutive time we have received recognition from Global Healthcare Accreditation. If you recall, we are the first hospital in the world to receive GHA's standard for COVID. And this time, we got a very perfect score of 100% full compliance. Another one, in the first quarter, we also reaccredit the renewal from Advanced Healthcare Accreditation for the third consecutive time as well, to confirm our commitment to maintain a strong quality system at Bumrungrad Hospital. Next slide is, I would like to show our performance of Center of Excellence. We add two more Center of Excellence, which are Urology and Breast Center. So in total, in Q1, we have the revenue growth around nearly 2% from Center of Excellence. This due to the earlier start of Ramadan period this year.
However, for non-CoE, we achieved very good growth, around 10.6% year-on-year. Next is the—I think everyone may be familiar with this promotion via our website and our Bumrungrad application, [Foreign language] . We try to secure our volume during Ramadan period, so we made decision to launch Health Fair, [Foreign language] , in the first of March and until the end of April. We set up the target as 1 million per day. One month, we achieve more than 100%, which are around 145%, na ka. And later, Khun Wisut will update you, because we already closed this promotion on the 30th of April. Next one is the press conference, [Foreign language] .
To promote our Center of Excellence, we host a press conference to present for the Breast Center under the theme, "Excellence in Breast Care, Providing Fast and Seamless Diagnosis and Treatment to All Breast Issues." Every time we launch the press conference and we have any promotion, in May, we see the significant increase of the cancer around 52% in revenue. Compared in by quarter, we increase around 35% of revenue growth. And currently, we still have the very positive feedback and growing in terms of the volume in our Breast Center. Next. We maintain the momentum of the Breast Center, because currently, breast cancer also one of the top that we found the cancer in the women.
So we promote our Horizon Center or Oncology Center under the theme, "United in the Fight Against Cancer," with a strong commitment to fight cancer through detection and treatments which are individualized, targeted, and effective, [Foreign language]. We place the very important in early detection and risk assessment through advanced genomic testing, and we would like to enable our patients to manage or even reduce their cancer risk. We also offer the comprehensive palliative care. So many people misunderstood that palliative care is to serve only the end-stage patient. But at Bumrungrad, we try to introduce palliative care since the patient detect their cancer, [Foreign language].
The strength of our Horizon Center, because we have the oncologist and multidisciplinary professional team, and they utilize the latest medical advanced technology to ensure that the patients and their family have the highest quality of life possible. Last but not least, I think you already see this news in our PR. We MoU with BGI Shenzhen and Bangkok Genomics Innovation Company to strengthen its provision of genomic medicine. And through this collaboration, we can concrete the way for a more personalized and precise approach to healthcare, and we would like to improve patient outcomes and advancing the field of genomics, which is very upcoming trend right now. That's all for me. Thank you.
[Foreign language]. Moving on to the business development. Can I have the slide? So as mentioned earlier, overall, we have seen approximately a 7.7% growth. For the international segment, we have seen approximately a 6.1% growth. The international segment, when again, I'll go on the next slide, where I'll talk about the Middle East, the Indochina, and the other segment. Thai, we have seen approximately a 9% growth. Expat, close to 11.2% growth, quarter-over-quarter. The major contributors or the countries which contributed from the expat segment stand to be United States, which contributed approximately 25% growth, quarter-over-quarter. China, the expat segment, which contributed approximately close to around 38%, quarter-over-quarter, in terms of growth. Germany, India, Australia, Netherlands, and France.
What we did differently, again, we continued our regular engagement with most of the leading corporates. We did outreach, health talks, regular activities, health fair with the respective chambers of commerce, diplomatic missions, and international schools. This first quarter of this year, we had specialty-specific focused events for these targeted communities, where we also had invited a lot of these chambers of commerce and medical attaché offices of these diplomatic missions for in-house sessions, for closed-door discussions between our key specialists, and have some product trainings and, you know, involvement as well. So moving on to the international segment. Middle East, we had seen approximately 4.9% growth quarter-over-quarter. But again, to remind you all, we had 50% more Ramadan days during this first quarter.
So when compared to the last quarter, where we had approximately around close to 10 to 11 days, this quarter, we had closer to 21 days of Ramadan period. Even during the Ramadan period, the major contributing factor, Qatar, showed a continuously upward trend. We had close to a 50%+ growth from Qatar. UAE also had in terms of—yes, of course, we had some slowdown towards March, where we saw, you know, because of the Ramadan period, the OPD footfalls gradually declining. But again, UAE stand to do well in Q1. Kuwait, now, as you all know, which was shown in the beginning of the presentation, we had a negative impact. We had a negative growth compared to the last quarter.
In terms of the development with Kuwait, it was mentioned in the last presentation that, you know, it is, it is somewhat for the Kuwait government to recalibrate, to, you know, again, to select and shortlist their selected service providers. So, update on what is happening with Kuwait is the calibrating is still on. As of now, for those of you who might not know, the cabinet has been newly appointed. The health minister is officially also newly appointed, so is the medical attachés in the respective countries, too. So as of now, in Thailand, it has not been reinstated, so hopefully, we expect it to happen sometime very soon.
We expect the medical attaché team, the Ministry of Defense team from Kuwait also to come back and resume operations in Thailand. As of now, the new officers or the new office has not yet been appointed, but hopefully in the near future, we expect it to start sometime really soon. Again, moving on to Oman, you know, even during the Ramadan period, you know, we have seen close to a 30% growth in the Oman business. This is again mostly because of our involvement with most of the private healthcare service providers there. So we had also collaborated with one of the leading private healthcare service providers in Oman. So we see a continued progress with them.
We see a continued, ongoing relationships with them, where we, we are getting high-end tertiary care, super specialty referrals from that region. For Saudi Arabia, you know, we had a business trip, with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Health of Thailand, between 6th to 11th of January, where we had a delegation, representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Health, Thailand, and also we had representation from Bumrungrad, where we had, discussions with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, to have Thailand as one of the approved destinations, for, for their citizens seeking treatment abroad. So that, that discussion is also ongoing, so we see positive results. We are expecting a delegation from the Saudi side, expected, towards Q2.
So hopefully, we are expecting a delegation of close to 15-16 people, representatives from the Ministry of Public Health of Saudi, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and also some from the leading public institutions in terms of mutually discovering areas of collaboration. And post this visit, there will also be a team delegation going back to Saudi again on the discussed areas, discovered areas, and signing up a memorandum of understanding. So the Indochina part, as Khun Neil had also highlighted, we have seen a negative 1.1%, but again, majorly, the negative impact is because of the situation in Myanmar. So Myanmar, approximately close to 14%. Year-on-year, we see a negative growth, negative impact.
But again, even though, you know, it is not stable, but we still continue our engagement with this community. We have periodic events, we have our doctors going out there, we are doing consultations in our clinic in Yangon, and we are facilitating high-end admissions in terms of we might have seen a drop in OPD numbers in vol- in terms of volume, but we are steadily maintaining the IPD numbers in terms of admissions for high-end specialty care from this part of the region. What is interesting for the Indochina part, which comprises of Myanmar, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos, and Singapore, the highlight would be Bangladesh. For this specific market, we have grown over close to around 25% quarter-over-quarter. We have, towards Q4, we had strategized and planned for specific initiatives for this part of the region.
Some of those, you know, one of those events is we or recently, we have launched a premium exclusive card for selected 100 members from this community, which provides not discounts, but some exclusive benefits, which they can avail, which already we provide for many international patients, but these are more like reserved facilities, concierge services, and we have named it as a Reserve Card. We launched it sometime, you know, just might be a few days back, 100 to 200 members, but we have seen just immediately after the launch, close to 10% of the, you know, approximately 10 people come and use that card already. Indonesia is a market where we have seen close to a 28% growth.
Indonesia is something also we started working aggressively towards Q4 of last year, where we had mentioned that TAT had recently started up their office in Indonesia, which was not there before. So in collaboration with TAT, we had also hosted approximately close to around 26 tourism operators, who came to Thailand, who visited our facility, and we packaged, as Kunil also mentioned, about some of the packages that we are trying to promote internationally now. So through these vendors, we are also planning to promote and, you know, offer these services. Because, again, Indonesia is one of the biggest markets, as we all know. Most of them, they travel to Singapore and to KL.
Thailand, for medical treatment, is still not. They're not much aware of it, so we are trying to promote these kinds of services to the tour operators. That is the initial way of penetrating into this market. We have seen, specifically from Q4, it's working well. We have seen close to around 28.8% growth from this part of the region. For others, again, internationally, we see China approximately grow close to around 25%+ on the international revenue. We see Ethiopia, again, as you all know, to remind all of you, that Ethiopia we had done the all-time highest revenue as a company last year.
But compared to that, quarter-over-quarter, this year, we have done approximately 17% growth for Ethiopia, both in terms of volume and in terms of numbers. And for Hong Kong, we have grown approximately 25%, compared to the last quarter. Few of the highlights of what we did for international. We had the Bumrungrad RO conference, which was held on 22nd of February. We had 88 participants, out of which we had approximately close to around 39 international ROs who came into Bangkok, and we had a two-day event in Pattaya. And to close off, I will just give one quick update on the social media that we did for Chinese social media.
When we started, you know, sensitizing the social media for China, in Q1 of 2023, we had approximately around 1,200 WeChat followers. And then, towards Q2, Q3 of 2023, we started social media engagement and dedicated focused approach for this market. And we have... From that, we have seen a phenomenal response of engagement with this community. As of now, as of 31st of March , for WeChat, we have over 14,000 followers, and we continue making this engagement an upward trend and also engaging with multiple other platforms like Zhihu, Red Book. And also, we are also coming up with customized content on Chinese media, with Chinese publications with related to articles, health articles, and we are promoting on these social media platforms. That's the update from my end.
Thank you.
Let me ask Daniel to say a few words about insurance operations, because this piece of the business has grown pretty significantly. He discussed a little bit about this at our last analyst presentation, but the business is now almost touching THB 5 billion annually. Not quite, but close. And the way that he has managed it, many of you know him from his past position as investor relations, but he's grown well beyond that. So Daniel, maybe you could give us a little bit about the insurance operations and the tactics and the successes and near successes that we've had, please.
Absolutely. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Nice to see you all here. For the insurance side of the business, I'm sure you've heard from the previous quarter, what we plan to do. There are big things that we're planning to do on the insurance side. In Q1, revenue for insurance grew around 12%, Nipat, which is higher than the average growth rate that we're seeing on the insurance sector right now. Currently, premiums are growing at approximately 4.5% per annum, so we are growing at above market rates. We are taking some market share. Now, obviously, premiums does not equate with claims. The claims rate is typically higher if you factor in the inflation of healthcare as well. But even if you do, which is approximately 5%, we are still growing at above insurance rates.
And on top of that, Q1 typically is a lower season for insurance. It typically peaks at Q3, Q2, Q3, when there are certain seasonalities that come with it, infectious diseases, especially. So we do expect to see the same, development on that as well. On the insurance side, domestically, we are growing at well above 12%, which is, I would say, a solid performance, considering that there are certain domestic issues that we have in terms of GDP growth. And we are managing to steer these cases through collaboration, outreach, and also education among our, key referral channels, such as agents, and how they bring in these patients and manage the claims process. In a way, these agents work similar to an RO, but it's more face-to-face, it's more one-on-one rather than a, a B2B business. We also have been engaging strongly with brokers.
We see that especially in the upcountry region, where we've established quite a solid presence in Chonburi area and also in Nakhon Ratchasima, where healthcare typically either is a bit too expensive, given the captured market, or the healthcare there is not quite up to par with what we can provide here in Bangkok and in Bumrungrad, especially. And so we see a lot of high-spend cases such as cancer, liver transplants, things of that nature, that we're seeing currently now. In addition to that, on the medical assistance side and international business side, we're seeing significant growth as well. We've signed up a number of new medical assistance companies, which previously we did not have a good relationship with for legacy issues, but now we're starting to see a return of that business. So we're quite encouraged by what we're seeing now.
We do expect to see that performance contribute towards the second half of this year. Furthermore, of course, the growth in international tourists has also driven that organically as well, and in the region. We're starting to see a return of investment within Thailand, but also within the region, Cambodia, and also Laos. But also in Indonesia, we're also targeting insurance cases and even in Hong Kong, where typically they would either go to Singapore, or in the case of Hong Kong, get treatment in Hong Kong. But the costs there have increased significantly during COVID, and a lot of insurers are looking at how they can save costs by steering these cases to lower cost alternatives, which would include Thailand.
The key part for that is, how do we develop a program that is attractive both for the policyholder and also for the insurer? So packages, as was mentioned previously in previous presentations, is one part of that. Other parts will also include things such as the whole journey and how we manage that journey. Similar in a way to international medical tourism, it's just using insurance, which typically has certain steps that we need to make as well. Finally, I would also say that operational excellence is key. As I mentioned in the previous quarter, it is very important that the patient receives pre-authorization in a timely fashion, because sometimes these patients shop elsewhere. Whoever is able to deliver the pre-authorization and the GOP first, typically has an advantage, and that's why we've reduced turnaround significantly. Previously, we were targeting three to five days.
We are now looking at internal turnarounds of four to eight hours, so that's a significant decrease, and our compliance there is approximately 88%, which is quite significant, considering that we have not added too much in terms of headcount. So on the efficiency side, that has also improved. Communication among insurers is very important. How we engage with their medical teams, how we engage with their network team is very important, so we've increased the channels of communication and also streamlined the Singapore source of contact to be one, one department only. So therefore, the insurers don't need to go shopping around, discussing with various departments. They go to one location, they discuss with one, with one department, and they're the ones who manage that.
That cannot be understated, because the relationships you build at that level generates organic growth as well, and that's something that we would like to continue to focus on. So as Neil mentioned, it's right that our business is approaching THB 5 billion. We are hopeful that that will exceed the case, and currently, trends are looking quite favorable for us, and we're very encouraged by it. Thank you, Kub.
Very good. Thank you, Neil. Good morning, everybody. [Foreign language] . I'm gonna spend a few minutes today, providing you all with an update on where we are in Phuket. I'm thrilled to be here. As you might imagine, we've told you over the last two quarters, we've got a lot going on in Phuket. What you're looking at here is an artist's rendition of the north side and the west side of Bumrungrad International Hospital, Phuket. You see certainly planes, as we may recall, there are 53 now different airlines flying into Phuket. Planes flying in from the east will see the sky light up at night, Bumrungrad International.
The rest of the roof you'll see is covered by solar panels, so 100% of the light coming from that, the energy is actually we're taking from the sun. So we're focusing on CSR activities before we even get started. So we've had a lot going on. As you see on the right here, that's Route Road 402. We're just about 2 km from the parking lot at the Phuket International Airport. And so we're really thrilled. So there's a lot of activity going on in the Phuket region. I'll go through some of that in the next four or five minutes. At a very, very high level, again, this is where we are today. We're looking at a 5-level facility, starting with the basement.
Two basement levels, underground, will be parking, and as you see, lab, pharmacy, support services, and storage, kitchen, laundry, and linen, et cetera. The ground level will be the first floor of our advanced diagnostic center, emergency services, of course, registration, outpatient clinics, pharmacy, and again, food and beverage. Similar to what we see on the mezzanine floor here at Bumrungrad. On level two, the second floor of the advanced diagnostic center, many outpatient clinics at that point. Level three, our surgical suites, ICU, CCU, maternity, nursery, outpatient clinics, and I think 10 or 12 IPD inpatient beds as well. And then the top two floors, four and five, will be inpatient services. So we're really excited about that.
In total, we're looking right at 212 inpatient beds total, right at 50,000 sq m, so it's a big facility. I mentioned in previous presentations, we procured 16.3 rai in June of last year, and we're moving forward with this. We've got a number of activities on parallel tracks, so we actually applied for our EIA, Environmental Impact Assessment, on February 22nd, so we're really two months into that process as now. We've experienced no significant road bumps, and again, if things go according to plan, we'll be breaking ground in the September, October timeframe of this year and completing and opening the hospital at some point, Q2, Q3 of 2026.
And again, we'll do as many things as we can on parallel tracks, and there's probably nobody less patient in the room than me. We wanna start pouring concrete next week, but cannot. So a day at a time here. One other thing I'll add, we're seeking additional property for staff housing. As many of you are aware, there's very little, if any, public transportation in Phuket. So, as we do here in Bangkok, we need to take care of our staff and offer economically priced staff housing for our nurses and clinical staff as well. So we're looking at two or three options that are relatively close to this site right here, so that there's a very short golf cart ride or van ride as well. So, that's moving forward. We're excited about that.
Overall, from the market perspective, I'll share, as you may recall, we opened up a referral office, as both Khun Rajeev and Khun Neil have shared this morning. We're up to over 125 referral offices around the world. We opened up a referral office in Phuket Town back in 2022, a short walk from Bangkok Hospital Phuket, so right downtown. We continue making ourselves available. We did not open a clinic, it's actually a referral office. But we continue to see an increase in number of patients through the RO from Phuket and from other regions as well as Phang Nga, Surat Thani, Krabi, of course, and then Songkhla to the south. So, we've done a number of events in these areas.
So you heard Khun Rajeev talk about some of the physician-seeking events as well. We've done several over the last year in Phuket. We just had one last week in Surat Thani, had a very good crowd. We had a cardiologist come in. Three or four months ago, we had an orthopedic surgeon, very well attended. We provide a number of surgical or clinical consults at these events as well, so very well attended. I mentioned again, we've initiated a number of CSR activities actually last year. We continue to ramp those up, not only in the Thalang District, where we're building the hospital, but throughout the region as well. So that'll continue to take on increased interest over the months in year ahead.
We will, we will do a lot in this space between now and 2026, when we open the hospital. In the recent past, we began providing home nursing visits to post-surgical and medical patients from Bumrungrad here in Bangkok. A really key provision that the providers here, the physicians here, can suggest to patients. Again, we're not doing extensive nursing care, but we certainly, we can do wound changes, we can do IV injections, and so a number of those facilities like that, so it's really good. It alleviates the need for some patients to go to the Phuket Airport, get on a plane, fly to Bangkok, and come back necessarily. We're excited about that.
And first and most important thing, we're thrilled about, as Neil, Lin, and Rajeev have mentioned, we're in the process. We expect by the third week in June, maybe the first of July, in that timeframe, we're opening up a VitalLife Longevity Center in the Cherng Talay Laguna area of Phuket. We're excited about this. This is a two-floor facility. It's 475 sq m . We in traditional VitalLife services it will provide, but also cardiac screening on the ground floor as well. So we're really, really excited about this. We're in the process of building the space out. We should be done in the next two to three weeks for that, and start to move in equipment and facilities and things like that.
We're working on staffing and again, market development as well. So I'll just close it, you know, by saying really, physically, again, we opened an office in 2022. We have six full-time employees, including myself, that are working out of the referral office in downtown Phuket. And it's a seven-day affair at this point. There's activities going on just about every single weekend, whether it's a hotel association. This week at the JW Marriott in Phuket, there's a Saturday-Sunday, two-day international healthcare and wellness conference going on, and a lot of attendees and everything else from all over the region and stuff. So we're really excited, and we've got staff attending all of the events, and a lot of it is just, you know, continuing to just spread the brand that Bumrungrad has.
You know, as we know over the years, that a lot of most consumers equate the word Bumrungrad, our name, with the word trust. And so, you know, a lot of what we do is to simply maintain and improve that trust. We wanna have a seamless transition for any patients and family members from the whole Phuket region coming here to Bangkok. So, you know, our staff works very closely with Khun Rajeev's staff, Dr. Nipat's staff, and it's paying off so far. So we see positive growth month-over-month over prior years. So I'll leave it there. Thank you very much for your time and attention, and pass it back to Neil.
Thank you, David. Not only an experienced healthcare executive but understands the value of community development. Right now, when you're building a new hospital, what's critically important is the outreach, the community development, and he is a master at it. He's been going at it literally nonstop, except for this weekend, he was in the hospital. But because of privacy rules, I won't say why you were in the hospital.
I can.
He's still okay.
You can share.
You can share. You can tell them. So you're ready to go for this challenge for Phuket?
I'll take the challenge. Back several years ago in 2012, I had an auto accident in the U.S., driving my car, and I had a case of unexplained syncope.
I'm terrible.
My heart decided to slow down to the point where I passed out at the wheel of a car. Absolutely guarantee you, no drugs and alcohol involved. I had that screening. But I had a pacemaker put in my chest, and I had it replaced. The battery was only supposed to last seven years. Mine lasted 12. I can't explain that 'cause I use a lot of energy. But I had that replaced this past Saturday here at Bumrungrad, and had a magical experience. If none of you—Not that we want people in the room to be sick and to be inpatients, but it really is, it's a different experience here, compared to American hospitals.
And, I would be remiss in not taking this opportunity, Neil, thanks, just, to thank the nursing staff, that not only on the floor but in the surgical suite, it was like an orchestra. Literally, just watching before the anesthesia took place, watching the surgical techs and the nurses and the physicians and everything, it was really incredibly efficient. So, you know, I think it's important for us not just to talk the talk, but to walk the walk. And, you know, I had no trepidation. This is the third time I've been a patient here, but the first time as an inpatient, and I had a great experience, and looking forward to getting a patient satisfaction survey. So anyways, thank you.
So we have Khun Wisut Ua-Anant, Chief Digital MarTech Officer, to update about the MarTech Transformation Platform for the year 2024, ka.
Please remember, what he's about to show you, we started from zero. He started from zero during COVID, and he and his team have built what he's, what he's about to show you, which is a whole new revenue vertical for us, which we never had before.
Yep.
Okay.
Thank you, Kap. Okay. Hi, everyone, [Foreign language], and honored to be here, [Foreign language]. Today, I would like to talk about the MarTech Transformation Platform, nakup. Before talk about this thing, now, let me explain more a little bit about MarTech, [Foreign language]. All the organization want to do the data-driven organize, nakup, and want to do the digital transformation, nakup. Four year ago, when I come here, I think about, "Oh, what is the next step beyond the digital transformation?" [Foreign language]. We think about the way to do MarTech transformation, [Foreign language]. On, on that four year is a new word, naha, for MarTech, but right now, it's become the new trend, [Foreign language]. When you talk about the digital transformation, you have to think about the people, process, and technology, [Foreign language]. The three angle that you have to concern in every organize.
For us, we want to do the one step beyond. We call digital MarTech transformation. We want to do people, process, and platform, [Foreign language]. We not only use the technology to for here, but we build the platform that can reuse and make the new growth for the healthcare as well, [Foreign language]. Let's see, what is it, [Foreign language]? And when you have the data, if without intelligence, data without intelligence is history, just only what you did in the past, [Foreign language]. But if you have the data with intelligence, it mean you did the insight that you do the marketing part as well, [Foreign language]. Okay, from 2019, [Foreign language], four year ago, naha, we built a new concept of the new teamwork. It's called Avengers Teamwork, [Foreign language].
Actually, MarTech is come from the Marvel, and I cut the vel, [Foreign language], to be the MarTech team, [Foreign language]. We integrate the skill of the people for skill, [Foreign language]. You can see we have creative, IT, marketing, statistic together, [Foreign language]. Every, every person who, who come to here, they need to train four angle in when, when they think about anything, when we, when we development, [Foreign language]. You think about like this, [Foreign language], if you want to make it done, you need IT, but if you want to make it better, you need marketing. What about if I make it done and make it better in the same team, [Foreign language]? I... That why we do the MarTech team, [Foreign language]. Okay. Normally, engineer think inside out, but marketing outside in, [Foreign language]. That why when we combine together and build a service, we can make the new thing happen, [Foreign language].
We use the Agile mindset, Scrum process, and art and science development teamwork, nakup. Okay, whatever we achieve for four year, [Foreign language]? Right now, we achieve about 40 award, [Foreign language], for four year, [Foreign language]. Actually, we got the new award last week, [Foreign language], about the Agile, agility in marketing, [Foreign language]. We use the process of that as well, [Foreign language]. Okay, and I try to let you see the four year that we developed, [Foreign language]. We have five people na for the first year. Right now, we have 40 people, [Foreign language]. And you can see, I try to have the metric that can measurement the success of digital, [Foreign language]. We have the percentage of the digital transformation, [Foreign language]. What we have, we have revenue via digital, [Foreign language]. In every year, we have the direct revenue via platform, nakup, in every year as well.
And we try to divide by the revenue overall of hospital, what is the digital part percentage for that? For four year, you can see 3.5%. Right now, we grow to 42% right now for the digital, [Foreign language]. Okay? And we also develop the application and eight platform. I will show you what is it, [Foreign language]. The first year, nakup, in 2020, we developed the healthcare ecosystem. Actually, we call Health Tech Ecosystem there. You can see we have e-commerce part, mobile commerce part, telemed commerce part, and wearable commerce part, and we developed the chat commerce and also the social commerce, [Foreign language]. This is the angle for the first year that we development, [Foreign language], and we also build the data driven in the team, [Foreign language]. We have the customer data platform as well.
Currently, for four year, we have more than 8 million people data, na krub, to retargeting, to utilize, for the data to target them, [Foreign language] . Okay, for you, you can see this flow, [Foreign language] . Before hospital have the EMR, the electronic medical record, is the digital part of the hospital, [Foreign language] . Right now, we expand more digital in application, online store, ePayment, virtual health, IoT, IoMT, RPA, and also calling queue. It is the new platform that MarTech developed in four year, [Foreign language] . Actually, it relate to many service and relate to many staff touchpoint, [Foreign language] . I will show you some in next slide, [Foreign language] .
Okay, the first one about the application first, [Foreign language] . This is the easiest one that people can perceive value for digital, [Foreign language] . This is the touchpoint of the direct to customer, [Foreign language] . And customer can do patient profile, customer can do personalized notification, clinical data, vaccination data, allergy, payment, and, and many thing, right? It's similar to other people do develop for the application, [Foreign language] . But for us, we think about the nine journey experience. We do the design digital experience transformation in nine angle, [Foreign language] .
You can see we focus on the journey of when people before come to hospital, they have to use book appointment and find a doctor, [Foreign language] , and send an inquiry to ask people, na. After that, when they come to hospital, we need to remind them to come, right? We need to tell them where to go. We need to tell them how long they have to wait, something like that. And after that, we're using app and to bypass the cashier, how to make a voucher, and they scan, and they don't need to go cashier anymore, go back home, [Foreign language] . That's why we developed the online store, [Foreign language] .
You can see we have seeing doctor in person in hospital, and we also have the telemed, digital. The COVID part we've been. That's why we require to see in the telemed as well. Visiting patient, we have the gift card that actually we got a lot of award for, for the gift card as well. And the clinical patient profile, seamless payment, and this is the nine pillar of that. I show you some feature that we development last year and this year.
We have the support real-time appointment doctor for 245 doctors right now. If you select, but actually, we have the total 1,300 doctors, but we can support the real-time doctor for 245. And we also support the preparation note and remind, and confirmation when the people before they come to hospital. And we have the way to search the doctor, search by the organ name, specialty, symptom. And we also have the organ.
If you don't know the doctor, but you know about your problem, you just select your problem, and we recommend doctor for you, [Foreign language] . And we also got the... this is another award from the Thailand Digital Transformation Award, [Foreign language] . We got the keyword search that we make the search that can search in five angle in real time, and use the AI to predictive the each character that they type, [Foreign language] . You can try. If you type in H, the AI will learn that, oh, most of the people who type H, it mean heart. It is can predictive before. Every typing that you type, it's gonna predictive and go further and find in the five angle, [Foreign language] .
Okay? And okay, and this is the look and feel, [Foreign language] . After you search, you can get the result from the doctor, package, treatment center, and health blog, all the thing, krub. Okay? This is the online store platform, [Foreign language] , the one that Khun Neil just talking about. Actually, this is the model that we developed in, in the, four year ago, [Foreign language] , and we do the 24 by seven, [Foreign language] , to sell the package more than 400 right now, [Foreign languaeg] , to sell everywhere in the world, [Foreign language] .
And also, right now, is a lot of people, more than 7 million people, that data that we track, to go to our store already. And this is the new concept of the prepaid model, for hospital, that they prepaid include the doctor fee. When they come to here, they just show the voucher and go back home. No need to go cashier anymore. This is the way to cut the cashier time as well. We got the achieve success one on the Tuesday.
You know, we done with the health fair campaign. In two month, we can create 118.3 million on the two month, and average per day is about THB 1.9 million. On that time, on the last day, we got the new high, new high for the four year. We got in one day THB 13.3 million. Actually, we can go more than this, but we problem with the BBL, the daily limit, that it go touch the daily limit of them. They never see the new high like this before for the credit card.
They worry about the fraud. That's why they, they protect. But right now, we can ramp up. The overall is about THB 118 million right now. Okay, and the next one is about the Sales Kit. This is a new tool as well that we developed for the O2O concept, offline to online, and also use for B2B. People can use for corporate and special price. The package is special for that company. We can do as well. Yep.
And this is a new thing, [Foreign language] , for this year, [Foreign language] . We launched last week as well, [Foreign language] , is Bumrungrad Wallet, [Foreign language] . We redefine the way of payment and combine all the method to pay in the wallet, [Foreign language] . And you can see we have combined four part, [Foreign language] , ePayment part, that I will show you. We have some new unique feature, [Foreign language] , that innovate first in Thailand, [Foreign language] . We will show you, na khrap, about the split payment and auto promotion, [Foreign language] .
The second one, about the e-HN card. No need the physical anymore, you use electronic, [Foreign language] . And the eVoucher, na khrap, for the online store part, and eReceipt, [Foreign language] , for the bill. Let's see now, what is it? Now, this is a look and feel when you go to application, you click on that, you have payment, my card, voucher, and receipt. Everything is in here. All that you need, it, it in one, one for all for this project. Okay, I show you the unique one. When you add the credit card, [Foreign language] , in your, in the application, when you switch the credit card, it's automatic detect promotion. Like this picture, [Foreign language] .
When you add a BBL, it's automatic detect BBL go up, and you can see, oh, what the BBL have promotion for the Bumrungrad automatically. And if you add more, more and more credit card, automatically detect the auto promotion for you as well. This is a new concept. And you can see we have another promotion in there, and we also have the category cashback, installment, and the point or the thing that for you to filter. Okay? And this is the, this is a new innovation, one for Thailand, first in Thailand, split payment. We know the pain point of the patient when they come to here and want to surgery, right?
Imagine now, if they had to pay about THB 2 million, how they're going to use one credit card to pay if the credit limit is not enough, right? That's why we developed self split pay. [Foreign language], It means that you come, whatever you have, you can split, and you can change the percentage to split up the payment, and we have nine methods for you to select. [Foreign language]. It means if you have a payment, maybe example, THB 1 million, you split to THB 500 thousand, THB 500 thousand. You can think about, oh, this one for one credit card, this one for second credit card. You can do that, or you can do one credit card and QR code, or mobile banking, or installment. You can do as well.
This is another way to help people to pay easier and make them can get the earn point and all the thing as well. Okay? This, this one we already launched. The next one is about the virtual healthcare. This is the telemed part, but we call virtual health because we do beyond the telemed. Right now, we integrate with the data IoT, and we also integrate with the many the digital part in there. You can see we have medical interpreter.
Right now, we support more than 120 interpreters and support more than five languages in real time. We can have six people at the same time when you talk with doctor. You can invite nurse, you can invite doctor, you can invite interpreter, and your relative to talk together for our telemed. We in-house development and we got the public health certified SP, SP 16 already from the government. And you can see we have the chat support. We have all the function that people have.
Okay? The next one is about the PGHD. Actually, it's Patient-Generated Health Data. This one is mean you can bring your own device, or your wearable, the IoT, IoMT, that you have, and send the data via the platform, via the application to the doctor. Right now, our doctor can see all the data that you have. And this is the new project that actually we developed two years ago, Bumrungrad Digital Health Data. It is the one that we combine all wearable IoT and IoMT and in the site, and use the AI to learn and recommend and also health analytic, health coach, to do.
In the future, in seven year, Thailand will become the hyper aging society. This is the future. You can use IoT, IoMT wearable for the older one, the older age one, right? And you can send all the data to us. We have the AI to monitor. It mean that we not do only curative and preventive, but we can do proactive care in the future as well for this. This is the future revenue subscription model and the new high growth for the Thailand as well. Okay, and the last one, last but not least, Calling Queue Assistant.
This is the newest platform that we developed in here as well, because most complaint in here is the waiting time, right? We try to develop that. Maybe we cannot reduce the waiting time, but we can tell you how long you're going to wait, [Foreign language]. And also, if you have the lab and you have to wait for two hour or one hour, what about you can go anywhere and we do the call IVR with the four language support for you before you're going to come back to us, [Foreign language]. This one we already developed this year and start to use and very good positive feedback from the patient, [Foreign language]. Okay, my last slide, [Foreign language], is about the MarTech platform.
I hope you guys can see that what we developed is like a... This is the whole ecosystem to develop, and we are great in the clinical, right? But we want to be the best in the digital as well. Thank you, [Foreign language] .