Facts:
- South Korean labels were the big winners in FT Confidential Research's latest survey of China's most popular cosmetics brands, as they catch up on the dominant US and European companies.
- Their popularity is strongest among young consumers, supported by the fashion for Korean pop music and television. We expect global market leaders to continue to tap into this trend with more acquisitions in the Korean cosmetics industry.
- Online cosmetics sales look set to continue to grow faster than the overall market and established brands will increasingly focus on this sales channel to drive revenues.
Beauty is now one of the country’s largest industries, rivaling technology, and is a major export area. In the past five years alone, exports have grown from $1 billion in 2012 to $2.64 billion in 2017, a record high, according to the Korea Customs Service.
South Korea’s leading brand Amore Pacific has joined the top ten biggest beauty companies at number seven and, despite its demographic decline, the country is now ranked among the top ten global beauty markets, with a market size of $13 billion, according to Mintel.
We have the South Korean people to thank for creating conditions for a market where competition is ferocious. The country’s deep-rooted belief in personal cultivation is twinned with a skin-first, fast-fashion approach to beauty.
“There is a fundamental belief, anchored in a philosophy of well-being, pervasive in all of Asia, that you should take care of yourself spiritually and physically as a show of respect to yourself and others, and to your family,” Ms. Wang explains.
This cultural milieu, magnified through the social media panopticon of the most highly-connected society in the world where internet speeds are faster than any other, provides perfect tinder-like conditions for new trends to spread like wildfire.
In recent years, US's top cosmetics store, Sephora, has brought in a new K-beauty section. An increasing number of beauty brands were introduced, and soon attracted popularity in North American buyers.
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