Korea Moves to World’s Second-Largest Cosmetics Exporter As Export Markets Expand to 202 Countries
Korea's largest cosmetics export destination is the US
Last year, Korea’s cosmetics trade surplus reached $10.1 billion, marking the first time it has surpassed $10 billion. At the same time, Korea overtook the United States to become the world’s second-largest cosmetics exporter after France.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on May 22 that its analysis of last year’s domestic cosmetics production, export, and import results showed the trade surplus rose 13.5% from the previous year’s $8.9 billion to $10.1 billion, breaking the $10 billion threshold for the first time.
This result was driven by export figures rising 11.8% from the previous year’s $10.2 billion to $11.4 billion, while imports fell 2.3% from the previous year’s $1.32 billion to $1.29 billion. Notably, Korea’s cosmetics export performance moved up from third to second place globally last year, overtaking the United States.
The leading product categories driving the growth of K-beauty exports are basic cosmetics and color cosmetics. They accounted for 74.7% and 13.2% of last year’s total export figures, respectively, combining for 87.9% of total exports and making up the vast majority of cosmetics shipments.
Last year’s cosmetics trade surplus of $10.1 billion accounted for 12.9% of the country’s total trade surplus of $78 billion. This demonstrates that even as the total trade surplus reached its highest level since 2017, cosmetics maintained a share of over 10%, firmly establishing itself as one of Korea’s signature surplus industries.
In terms of export value by country last year, the United States ranked first at $2.2 billion. China came in second at $2 billion, followed by Japan in third at $1.1 billion.
Exports to the United States first reached second place in 2021 and have grown steadily since, surpassing $1 billion in 2023. Last year marked the first time the United States topped the list as Korea’s leading cosmetics export destination. Exports to China fell 19% year-on-year, while Japan rose 4.9%. Hong Kong, Vietnam, and others followed in the rankings, with the top 10 countries together accounting for 70.7% of total exports. Among the top 10, Poland posted the steepest year-on-year growth at 115%, rising to 9th place, while the United Arab Emirates climbed 70.6% to reach 8th.
Korea’s cosmetics export destinations expanded from 172 countries in 2024 to 202 countries last year, an increase of 30 countries, effectively reaching most of the world.
By global region, Europe saw the largest increase in export growth. Poland jumped significantly in the rankings, from 14th to 9th, while the United Kingdom moved from 12th to 11th and Russia held at 6th, and France made a new entry into the rankings.
In North America, exports grew driven by the United States reaching first place and Canada’s ranking improvement. In East Asia, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan maintained their previous year’s rankings, steadily holding strong positions in the top tier.
Last year’s domestic cosmetics production value reached a record high of 17.9382 trillion won, up 2.3% from the previous year. The main production categories were basic cosmetics at 10.3177 trillion won and color cosmetics at 2.8378 trillion won.
Among the 15,342 companies that reported cosmetics production performance last year, rankings among companies producing 100 billion won or more showed some changes compared to the previous year.
Among cosmetics responsible sales businesses, LG Household & Health Care posted the highest production performance at 3.9185 trillion won, followed by Amorepacific at 3.0256 trillion won and Aekyung Industrial at 296.6 billion won.
Among them, the company that climbed the most in ranking compared to the previous year was APR, which rose from 21st to 4th. Gooday Global, which rose from 18th to 9th, and Binow, which moved from 19th to 11th, followed.
Among ODM companies, Cosmax recorded the highest production performance at 1.6104 trillion won, followed by Kolmar Korea at 1.3012 trillion won and Cosmecca Korea at 353.1 billion won.
The companies with the largest ranking gains compared to the previous year were Cosvision, which rose from 8th to 6th, and BNB Korea, which climbed from 11th to 9th.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said, “We are pursuing various policy support measures so that Korea’s cosmetics industry can lead international safety standards and play a leading role in global markets,” adding, “We will continue to do our utmost to help excellent Korean cosmetics advance more actively into global markets.”
Choi Mun-hee
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