For those who live in Asia-Pacific, it’ll be no surprise to learn that Korea is the world’s second largest beauty exporter. Sales exceeded $6.1b in 2020, larger than Japan or the US. The country has industry leader France (exports $8.9b) in its sights.
Korea’s beauty industry is helped by its proximity to China which last year posted sales increases of 22%, one of the few markets to grow in the pandemic.
French beauty suffered as the sales of perfumes dropped by 16% and Eau de toilette by even more. The collapse of global travel hit hard, especially as the French beauty business relied heavily on the International duty free channel.
Cosmax, a Korean original design manufacturer, now makes a third of all cosmetics bought by Chinese shoppers and sells over 100 million lip products in the country.
Cosmax started its original brand manufacturing business in China in 2015 and now has two subsidiaries there.
China isn’t its only focus, it has a plant in Indonesia where it received Halal certification and has even ventured into French beauty’s closet receiving a vegan certification.
The business works with over 600 beauty companies including 15 of the top 20. Last year its sales exceeded $1.1b.
What Foxconn is to technology, Cosmax is to beauty.