APR rises, Aekyung falls amid K-beauty's global popularity

Kim Hee-seon models for APR's beauty tech device. Courtesy of APR

Beauty product company APR broke into the top three in Korea's highly competitive beauty industry, pushing out long-standing major player Aekyung Industrial from the podium in last year’s earnings.

APR's performance, driven by its signature brand Medicube, came as a sign that the industry, which has long been dominated by three top companies — Amorepacific, LG Household &Health Care (LG H&H) and Aekyung — is now seeing a shift, in the wake of the global popularity of K-beauty products.

Overseas sales fueled APR’s performance last year, particularly in the United States. According to APR’s regulatory filing on Feb. 10, the company logged 722 billion won ($496 million) in sales and 122 billion won in operating profit last year. Its revenue jumped by 38 percent while operating profit increased by 17.7 percent from the previous year. This marked the second consecutive year that APR’s operating profit exceeded 100 billion won.

Aekyung Industrial fell short of APR in both figures in the same year. Sales reached 679 billion won and operating profit stood at 47.4 billion won. Its sales jumped by 1.5 percent but operating profit dropped 23.5 percent from the previous year.

APR products were consistently popular in the United States. In the fourth quarter, APR’s products topped Amazon sales charts. Zero Pore Pad dominated the online platform’s Toner & Astringents category with the highest sales, while Collagen Night Wrapping Mask and Collagen Jelly Cream came in second and third in the platform’s Facial Masks and Face Moisturizer categories, respectively.

Buoyed by the popularity of its products, APR’s overseas sales in 2024 soared to 400 billion won, a figure the company has never seen before. Almost 150 billion won was from the fourth quarter, up 135 percent from the previous year. The company’s business-to-business (B2B) sales to U.S. firms also contributed to the quarterly sales, seeing a year-on-year increase of 1,171 percent.

APR’s overseas subsidiaries are now in 10 countries including the U.S., China, Japan and Hong Kong.

“K-beauty’s rising global popularity fueled APR’s products to clinch major sales during Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday events in the U.S.,” a company official said.

“We expanded our B2B sales to retail chain operators and other major distributors beyond the U.S. to countries in Europe, South America and the Middle East.”

On the other hand, Aekyung Industrial, with beauty brands like Age20’s and Luna, seems to have been affected by its reliance on China. Although the company began expanding its overseas markets to the U.S. and Japan, nearly 70 percent of its overseas sales came from China last year. Chinese consumers are increasingly moving away from foreign brands due to so-called "patriotic consumption."

Amorepacific and LG H&H, meanwhile, consolidated their No. 1 and No. 2 positions in Korea’s beauty market last year, respectively. Amorepacific logged nearly 4.26 trillion won in sales, up 5.9 percent from the previous year, and 249 billion won in operating profit, up 64 percent during the same period. LG H&H’s beauty businesses posted 2.85 trillion won in sales, up 1.2 percent from the previous year, and 158 billion won in operating profit, up 8 percent year-on-year.