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Apple is increasing service charges for battery replacement of out-of-warranty iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks starting March 2023. The price rise ranges from $20 to $50 for different kinds of devices.

The change was spotted by Reddit users, who pointed out that Apple had silently mentioned this change on the repair pages for these devices.

“The current out-of-warranty battery service fee will apply until the end of February 2023. Effective March 1, 2023, the out-of-warranty battery service fee will be increased by $20 for all iPhone models prior to iPhone 14,” the company mentions on the iPhone battery replacement and repair page.

Here is a quick breakdown of the extra amount you will need to pay for battery replacement for a device that’s not covered by warranty starting in March:

iPhone 13 and prior: $20 (total price: $89)
iPad Pro 12.9” (5th generation and prior), iPad Pro 11” (3rd generation and prior), iPad Pro 10.5”, iPad Pro 9.7”, iPad mini (6th generation and prior), and iPad Air (5th generation and prior): $20 (total price: $99 to $119)
All MacBook Air models: $30 (total price: $159)
All MacBook Pro models: $50 (total price: $249)

For reference, iPhone 14’s battery’s battery replacement price is $99, which is higher compared to older models.

This change is global and local price rises may vary. For instance, the UK will charge GBP 20 for an iPhone battery change, while France will charge EUR 24.

The service charge increase won’t affect AppleCare or AppleCare+ subscribers or folks who rely on third-party repair services.

Notably, Apple opened up its self-service program for US-based iPhone users last April, which allows people to get and replace parts without any external help.

While the price increase in service charge for battery replacement is not ideal, it will still lease a new life to your device so you don’t have to spend money on a new gadget.

Apple is increasing battery replacement service charges for out-of-warranty devices by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Suhail Sameer, the chief executive of BharatPe, will leave the top role later this week as the Indian fintech startup scrambles to steer the ship after kicking out its founder last year for allegedly misusing company funds.

The New Delhi-headquartered startup, backed by Sequoia India, Tiger Global, Coatue, Dragoneer and Ribbit Capital, said Sameer will transition to a strategic advisor role on January 7 and the current chief financial officer Nalin Negi will take over as the interim chief executive.

“We have recognized the need to dedicate time and resources to finding the leader who will continue to catapult BharatPe to new heights, and we are grateful for the commitment from Suhail and Nalin. We look forward to supporting Nalin Negi in his role as the interim-CEO, as we move ahead in our mission of empowering millions of MSMEs with a range of world-class financial products,” said Rajnish Kumar, Chairman of BharatPe Board, in a statement.

The move follows BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover being forced to resign last year after a rather odd public showdown with the startup’s board, which alleged that he had misused company funds. The startup also sued Grover and his wife, Madhuri Jain, for damages worth $10.7 million last month.

Sameer took over as the CEO in the second half of 2021. As the relationship between the two soured, Grover alleged that Sameer had become the “board’s puppet” as the startup probed allegations of frauds against Grover.

Indian newspaper Mint first reported about Sameer’s departure earlier Tuesday.

Sameer’s departure is the latest in a series of setbacks at the Indian fintech, which once gave stiff competition to incumbents with its QR-code and payments solutions to merchants. BharatPe, once valued at $2.85 billion and which has raised over $580 million to date, continues to reel from the drama surrounding its founder’s ouster and its public spats with him.

Rajnish Kumar, former chairman of State Bank of India, has sought to revamp the startup’s management and leadership teams in the past two years but whether his bet will payoff remains unclear.

Indian fintech BharatPe CEO Suhail Sameer to leave top job by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Uber and Airbnb have long been the poster children for the sharing economy. In other realms of society, entrepreneurs are also trying to match demand with untapped assets and services. HD, a startup based out of Bangkok, is applying the economic model to healthcare in Southeast Asia.

HD operates a platform that helps three parties meet: surgeons with private practice, patients looking to have their surgeries done more cheaply, and vacant surgery rooms at hospitals. The model might sound a bit counterintuitive to people in the West, but Southeast Asia’s medical system is built on very different patient-hospital dynamics.

Sheji Ho, co-founder and CEO of HD, conceived the idea when he saw surgeons in Thailand advertising on Facebook to attract private customers. Dual practice is “very common” for doctors in Southeast Asia, observed Ho, who previously co-founded the Southeast Asian e-commerce enabler aCommerce.

“They get the credential from working for top hospitals, but they are paid poorly, so they also work at private ones where they get the money,” he says in an interview.

In Southeast Asia, people go straight to the hospital when they get sick. The problem with public hospitals, Ho reckons, is they have very long queues, so doctors try to lure patients to the private institutions where they work. “Doctors [in the region] are kind of like merchants who operate across different platforms,” he says.

Forty percent of Southeast Asia’s health spending was paid out of pocket in 2018, according to World Health Organization, compared to 29.8% in Europe and 32.4% in the Americas. Since there’s no central platform providing cost transparency, patients often end up paying a steep price.

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, swathes of surgeon rooms suddenly got freed up as Thailand, a popular destination for medical tourism, lost international patients. The oversupply was exacerbated by the country’s hospital-building spree before the pandemic, Ho noted, as the government bet on an aging population and increased land value.

“Organically, hospitals wanted to use our platforms,” Ho says. And since HD is bringing customers to them, it can bargain for lower room rates. Patients getting surgeries such as thyroid, hemorrhoid, and orthopedic surgery through HD are paying 15-20% less than market prices.

Why not provide a meeting point for all these needs? Hence HD launched its HDcare private-label surgery service two months ago. The platform is now sitting on a supply of over 20 operating rooms across Thailand and Indonesia, according to Ho, with the potential to access more from 1,500 healthcare providers already on its platform, and has over 40 types of surgeries lined up. The plan is to scale the service to 200 surgeries performed per quarter by Q4 2023.

Amazon for health services

HD’s surgery platform is a new addition to its established business, a marketplace for outpatient services. The model has proven successful in the massive healthcare market in neighboring China, where JD.com, Alibaba’s domestic archrival, runs a similar e-commerce operation selling third-party healthcare services like vaccinations, checkups, imaging sessions, and minor surgeries.

The absence of primary care in Southeast Asia means people either need to ask their friends for recommendations or do several rounds of hospital hopping before landing the right doctor and treatment.

That’s a contrast to the U.S., where 75% of adults had primary care physicians as of 2015 to treat common conditions and are referred to hospitals only for urgent and specialist treatment.

Like Airbnb, HD began onboarding hospitals and clinics through a lot of heavy lifting, like helping customers set up their product pages. “But that’s also our moat,” says Ho. “SaaS is still too early for Southeast Asia.”

HD takes a cut from transactions and charges a listing fee from healthcare providers, similar to how a conventional e-commerce platform monetizes. It also offers healthcare marketing solutions to providers on its platform, similar to how Amazon Ads and Tmall Ads enable brands to increase their reach and performance.

The liability of platform operators is an ongoing debate in the tech industry, and a business that could influence one’s health seems to make the matter even trickier. As a marketplace platform, HD doesn’t deal with disputes in general; in the beauty space where the experience may be more “subjective”, HD takes an approach similar to that of Amazon whereby it “puts patients first, refunds customers and deals with the providers directly,” says the founder.

“In general, HD prioritizes minimally invasive, short-stay, elective surgeries that have low output variation such as thyroid and hemorrhoid surgery, in addition to outpatient procedures.”

Since its founding four years ago, HD has served around 250,000 patients. It saw a 7x sales growth during the pandemic and aims to keep its growth rate at 2-3x growth in the post-COVID years.

Optimism in recession

While the pandemic is taking a toll on the global economy, Ho is optimistic about his own venture. “Whenever a recession started, we saw some businesses take off. They were leveraging excess supply. Groupon was leveraging the excess supply of restaurants, and for Airbnb, it was vacant homes,” he suggests.

“So, as we enter the recession, there is enough opportunity — hospitals sitting on excess rooms. We have a two to three-year window to rapidly grow that part of the business.”

Despite the encouraging signs of growth, HD’s fundraising was off to a rough start. As the pandemic swept across the world, investors turned to telemedicine startups as the default healthcare solution. Ho disagrees with the presumption.

“Telehealth works well in the Western market. Basically, you talk to the GP [general physician], you get a prescription, and you go to Walgreens to get your antibodies, which need a prescription,” he says.

“But in Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam, you can get that tier of medication at pharmacies [over the counter], removing the need for telehealth.”

Investors are now waking up to the potential of HD, which is enabling offline medical providers with digital platforms rather than competing with them. The startup recently closed a $6 million funding round from Partech Partners, M Venture Partners, AC Ventures, iSeed, and Orvel Ventures. It’s also part of a recent batch accepted into Google for Startups Accelerator’s Southeast Asia program.

This startup brings Southeast Asia’s vacant hospital rooms into the sharing economy by Rita Liao originally published on TechCrunch