A Laneige cosmetics shop in Hong Kong with an ad for Laneige, one of the many cosmetics shops 

overseas operated by AmorePacific.(Photo: AmorePacific)

AmorePacific has been hard at work globalizing its operation since the early 1990s, setting up cosmetics plants in China and France. It was considered a daring move on the part of the Korean cosmetics maker to set up its own cosmetics factory in France, the home of the world’s top-rated cosmetics products like Channel, L’Oreal, and Coty.

The cosmetics giant has divided its global market regions into five spheres including North America, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, Pan-China, and Japan to spur its globalization strategies. China is a key market as far as AmorePacific is concerned as its sales in the giant country amounted to 338.7 billion won in 2013, accounting for 62.7 percent of its total overseas sales.

The cosmetics firm entered China for business in the early 1990s and kicked off its operations by setting up its wholly-owned subsidiary in Shenyang in 1993 and began selling its famous cosmetics brands like Mamonde, Amore, and others in big cities in China’s Northeast such as Harbin, Shenyang, and Jiangchun. 

AmorePacific ranked the fifth in terms of its cosmetics sales in the three largest provinces in China’s northeast and has been striving to expand its market ever since by introducing its new brands like Laneige as part of its strategy to make its brands tops among Asian cosmetics brands.

Before launching the sale of Laneige, the company conducted a survey of around 3,500 Chinese consumers and then, based on the survey results, opened a boutique at a number of department stores in China under a high-level sales campaign from 2002.

Currently, the company has been selling its cosmetics at 329 department stores in 120 cities across China. As a result, Laneige has become the only AmorePacific cosmetics product whose overseas sales exceeded domestic sales based on 2013 figures.

Other brands have also done well in China. Mamonde is being sold at some 800 department stores and other sales outlets in 270 cities in China. BB Cream and other “hit products” are being sold at shopping malls and internet outlets, alongside hundreds of department stores. Sulhwasoo, since its debut in March 2011 at a department store in Beijing, has been sold at 30 other popular department stores in the Chinese capital. The cosmetics product has qualities that appeal especially to the Chinese customers because it contains some Chinese medicinal herbs.

Innisfree and Etude have also been doing well in China like its fellow AmorePacific products.

The kind of beauty AmorePacific seeks is perfect harmony among different elements that complement and perfect one another, like a perfect tapestry woven from seemingly contrasting threads –  emotional but rational, traditional but modern and cutting-edge, Oriental but Western, supple but strong, heritage-cherishing but proactive and forward-looking, natural but scientific, Korean but global. The beauty AmorePacific envisions is the beauty of togetherness that can be reached through perfect harmony among different qualities. This is the AmorePacific design philosophy. 

AmorePacific envisioned a new beauty that combines Asian culture and Western technologies in perfect harmony. From its first hit brand ABC Pomade to its unparalleled oriental medicine-based Sulwhasoo and AmorePacific, a global brand that captures the essence of Asian values, AmorePacific’s spirit of challenge and creativity has reshaped Asian beauty. As a result, AmorePacific has, since its inception in 1945, been showered with love and trust from customers to become the most esteemed beauty company in Korea. 

“We remember that it is you, our customers, who have made us what we are today. Many say that the history of AmorePacific is a history of creating from the ground up, but we at AmorePacific have only endeavored to make your dreams of beauty come true. And now we are geared to create a culture of beauty together with customers around the world,” Chairman Suh said in his statement on the company’s homepage.