A view of Amorepacific’s luxury cosmetics brand Sulwhasoo product and Hera Black Cushion.

Amorepacific’s luxury cosmetics brands such as Sulwhasoo and Hera had an impressive showing during China’s biggest shopping festival “Gwanggunje” as they saw sales shoot up 100 percent compared to a year ago.

The brand “Sulwhasoo” made the feat of surpassing the previous year’s sales performance only 13 hours after the brand launched subscription pre-sales on Nov. 21.

The brand ranked fifth in the cosmetics category of T-Mall as it saw sales surge 174 percent during the shopping season compared to the year before.

The brand “Hera” sold 30,000 “Black Cushion” items, showing a 100 percent jump in year-on-year sales.

Kim Seung-hwan, CEO and senior executive vice president of Amorepacific Group. (Photos: AmorePacific)

Amorepacific Group carried out an executives reshuffle representing a “generational change” to restructure its operations.

The group on Nov. 12 announced a reshuffle of executives, appointing Kim Seung-hwan, 51, the head of the group’s personnel management office, to become CEO and senior executive vice president of Amorepacific Group, replacing his predecessor Bae Dong-hyun, 65. Bae, 14 years older than the new CEO, quit his post in four years and six months.

The newly inaugurated CEO Kim held major posts such as the head of the management strategy team, the chief of the group’s strategy planning division office and the head of the group’s personnel organization office.

CEO Kim’s appointment may be construed as the group’s attempt to overhaul management fundamentals of operations in Korea and abroad and its subsidiaries and establish groundwork to make a leap forward.

In the latest reshuffle, executives responsible for the management of major brands have been replaced with ones born in the 1970s.

Chung Hae-jin, head of Amrepacific’s premium brand unit, has been promoted to executive vice president to become the chief of the Laneige brand unit, while Lim Joong-shik, 49, will be appointed to head Sulwhasoo’s brand unit. Vice President Hwang Young-min has been tapped as Amorepacific China RHQ general manager, responsible for the operation of the group’s operation in China.

The group carried out its structural changes. Amorefacific reorganized the brand structure, focusing on marketing, into a new one integrating business strategies covering all channels in Korea and abroad.

The reorganization is designed to ramp up each branch’s business competitiveness and promote deeper collaboration. To this end, the group inaugurated each brand unit of the group’s premium brands, Sulwhasoo and Laneige.

The group decided to have each brand adopt its own differentiation structure and operation method for its exclusive growth suiting its characteristics.

An Amorepacific official said the group carried out generation change and structural reorganization to overcome the pending crisis and establish foundation to make another leap forward.

Amorepacific, once dubbed a “K-beauty legend,” lost the No. 1 position to LG Household & Health Car in the wake of China’s retaliation against the U.S. installation of the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense System (THAAD) in Korea.

Amorepacific’s major sales channels - duty-free shops and department outlets - had been heavily buffeted by the effects, caused by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic so far this year.

The group suffered a setback as it saw sales drop by half. The group posted 1.208.6 trillion won in sales and 61 billion won in operating profit in the third quarter of the year, a 23 percent drop and a 49 percent plunge, respectively, compared to a year before.