AmorePacific gaining global recognition

Shoppers look at an advertisement about Sulwhasoo, AmorePacific’s high-end cosmetics brand, at the firm’s outlet in Beijing. / Courtesy of AmorePacific

By Park Ji-won

The nation’s leading cosmetics maker, Amorepacific, is expanding in overseas markets with products inspired by Eastern medicine.

The firm is setting up more overseas branches for its high-end cosmetics brand Sulwhasoo to boost overseas sales and raise awareness about Oriental medicine-based cosmetics. The cosmetics brand, made for middle-age women, uses Oriental medicine ingredients such as ginseng, pine tree and camellia.

According to an official, the firm aims to increase sales to 1 trillion won ($900 million) by 2015 by continuing its overseas expansion with its flagship brand, Sulwhasoo.

The cosmetics firm has been expanding to Southeast Asian countries, launching its first Southeast Asian branch in Singapore in September 2012, followed by a branch in Malaysia in May this year and another in Vietnam in July.

The firm began its global expansion in 2004 in Hong Kong, where many global cosmetics brands are competing. According to the official, the firm chose to open its first overseas stores in Hong Kong because it is a gateway to other Asian markets such as China, Singapore and Taiwan.

The cosmetics brand has successfully expanded to China, opening its first branch in Beijing in March 2011, taking advantage of customers’ familiarity with Eastern medicine, on which its products are based. The firm is now available in 20 stores in China, mainly at luxury department stores such as Beijing’s Shin Kong Place.

Since 2009, Sulwhasoo has also become popular among Japanese customers, largely through word of mouth.

In July 2010, the brand also became available at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury goods department store in New York in the United States. The department store is known to be the first to carry some of the world’s leading fashion brands such as Prada, Jimmy Choo and Gucci.

Sulwhasoo was formally ABC Ginseng Cream, which was introduced in 1966 by Suh Sung-hwan. Suh is a ginseng expert and wanted to use ginseng in cosmetics. Like his father, Suh has studied various Eastern medicine ingredients.

Amorepacific is a cosmetics and chemical company founded in 1945. It is the leading cosmetics company in the country, followed by LG Household & Health Care.