'Maxim White Gold' instant coffee marks 10th anniversary
Maxim White Gold products / Courtesy of Dongsuh Foods
By Kim Jae-heun
Korea's leading instant coffee maker, Dongsuh Foods, celebrated the 10th anniversary of its best-and-steady selling product, “Maxim White Gold.”
Since its launch in 2012, the instant coffee product, sold in stick-shaped sachets, rapidly gained popularity here with its soft and rich taste that Dongsuh says comes from the use of low-fat milk.
Korea's figure skating icon Kim Yuna also played a big part in making Maxim White Gold a huge success nationwide after she became a commercial model for the product. Sales of the product surpassed 10 billion won ($7.16 million) in the first month of its launch and achieved 100 billion won in annual sales that year. Three years later, Maxim White Gold's sales continued to grow to 200 billion won.
According to a market research firm Nielson Korea, Maxim White Gold accounted for a 10-percent share of the market in the first year of its introduction. Back then, the market size reached nearly 1.2 trillion won and the introduction of Maxim White Gold vitalized the domestic instant coffee market. By 2014, Maxim White Gold accounted for more than an 18-percent share of the market to surpass the combined market share of its major competitors. And in 2017, its share reached nearly 20 percent.
Today, Maxim White Gold's cumulative sales amount to about 1.8 trillion won. About 19.6 billion sticks have been sold, which boils down to 61.5 sticks per second. The total combined length of all Maxim White Gold sticks sold until now could reach around the earth more than 77 times and could even travel to the moon more than eight times.
“Maxim White Gold was created with Dongsuh Foods' 50-year technology in the instant coffee market. We will continue to develop differentiated products tailored to consumer needs and give back to customers who have loved Maxim White Gold for more than 10 years,” a Dongsuh Foods official said.