According to official 2025 national statistical data released by the South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) and the Korea Customs Service (official link), the South Korean cosmetics industry achieved a profound historical leap in 2025: the trade balance surplus broke through the 10 billion USD mark for the first time, and its export volume surpassed the United States, making it the world's second-largest cosmetics exporting country. This achievement is not merely a growth in export numbers, but is accompanied by a comprehensive restructuring of South Korea's geopolitical export markets, the explosion of capital-driven agile indie brands, a highly concentrated CDMO ecosystem synergy, and the deep drive of "policy-guided" regulatory policies at the national level.
This report aims to organize and analyze the latest data on South Korea's overall cosmetics imports and exports, geopolitical markets, category structure, domestic manufacturers, and the CDMO ecosystem in 2025, exploring the underlying strategies of its global expansion, hoping to provide some inspiration and reference for the Chinese cosmetics industry.
I. The Historic Leap of South Korea's Cosmetics Trade Balance and Its Macroeconomic Contribution
In 2025, the global beauty consumer market experienced significant inflationary pressure and channel restructuring, but the South Korean cosmetics industry showed extremely strong growth resilience. After experiencing an export pullback in 2022, South Korean cosmetics brands quickly completed channel restructuring and positioning transformation in the past two years, returning to a high-growth track.
Surplus Breaking the 10 Billion USD Mark: Asymmetrical Trade Expansion Driven by Exports
Statistical data shows that in 2025, South Korea's cosmetics trade balance surplus reached 10.129 billion USD (10,129,053 thousand USD), a strong year-on-year growth of 14.4% compared to 8.853 billion USD in 2024. This is also the first time in the history of the country's cosmetics industry that the surplus has exceeded 10 billion USD.
This leapfrog surplus expansion presents a clear asymmetrical structure of "export-driven, import defense." In 2025, South Korea's cosmetics export volume surged by 12.2% year-on-year, reaching 11.418 billion USD (11,417,570 thousand USD), setting a new historical record; meanwhile, cosmetics imports slightly decreased by 1.89% to about 2.3% during the same period (depending on different statistical benchmarks, the import volume was 1.289 billion USD, or 1,288,517 thousand USD). This indicates that within South Korea, domestic beauty brands can not only effectively resist the encroachment of imported high-end cosmetics but have also launched strong market-capturing actions on a global scale.
Between 2020 and 2025, South Korea's overall cosmetics import and export performance and trade balance showed a long-term steady growth trend:
| Year | Export Amount (Thousand USD) | Import Amount (Thousand USD) | Trade Balance (Thousand USD) | Surplus YoY Growth Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 7,572,097 | 1,168,098 | 6,403,999 | 21.4% |
| 2021 | 9,183,570 | 1,305,238 | 7,878,332 | 23.0% |
| 2022 | 7,953,197 | 1,325,134 | 6,628,063 | -15.9% |
| 2023 | 8,462,378 | 1,313,388 | 7,148,990 | 7.9% |
| 2024 | 10,177,312 | 1,324,201 | 8,853,111 | 23.8% |
| 2025 | 11,417,570 | 1,288,517 | 10,129,053 | 14.4% |
*Reference data released by South Korea's MFDS; slight differences may exist between different reports1.
From a macroeconomic perspective, South Korea's overall foreign trade balance surplus reached 78 billion USD in 2025, the highest level since 2017. Even within such a massive national trade surplus, the cosmetics trade surplus still contributed a remarkably high share of 12.9%. This indicates that cosmetics have completely shed their marginal attribute as "light industrial consumer goods" and have become an indispensable representative surplus industry and foreign exchange-earning pillar in South Korea's foreign trade.
Surpassing the US to Become the World's Second Largest: Restructuring the Global Beauty Landscape
In 2025, the change in global cosmetics export rankings marked a new normal in geopolitical beauty competition. For a long time, France and the United States ranked first and second in cosmetics exports, with South Korea following closely. But in 2025, South Korea's total exports officially surpassed the United States, becoming the world's second-largest cosmetics exporting country, further consolidating its strategic position as a powerhouse leading global beauty trends.
The performance and ranking of major global cosmetics exporting countries in 2025 showed the following pattern:
| Ranking | Exporting Country | 2024 Export Amount (Thousand USD) | 2025 Export Amount (Thousand USD) | YoY Growth Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | France | 23,258,228 | 24,279,575 | 4.4% |
| 2 | South Korea | 10,177,312 | 11,417,570 | 12.2% |
| 3 | USA | 11,198,577 | 10,753,349 | -4.0% |
| 4 | Germany | 9,076,005 | 9,890,797 | 9.0% |
| 5 | Spain | 8,367,248 | 9,242,211 | 10.5% |
| 6 | Italy | 8,256,515 | 8,997,236 | 9.0% |
| 7 | China | 6,733,510 | 7,256,890 | 7.8% |
| 8 | Japan | 3,475,027 | 3,877,512 | 11.6% |
*This global ranking data is compiled by the Korea International Trade Association (K-STAT).
Against the backdrop of slowing growth in the established beauty empire France (+4.4%) and negative growth in the US (-4.0%), South Korea achieved a double-digit counter-trend rise. Its high cost-effectiveness and rapidly iterating supply chain made it the biggest beneficiary under the global wave of consumer downgrading and rational consumption.
II. Resetting the Geopolitical Landscape of Export Destinations: US Takes the Crown, China Retreats, and Multipolar Expansion
In 2025, the most significant deep-seated feature of South Korea's cosmetics exports was the drastic reshuffling of the geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape. Since the THAAD incident in the 2010s, the pandemic, and the explosion of China's local influencer e-commerce, K-beauty has encountered structural resistance in the Chinese market. In response, the South Korean beauty industry launched a multi-year strategy of "de-reliance on China" and "multipolar expansion," which showed its results in 2025.
The US Becomes K-Beauty's Number One Export Destination
Among South Korea's export amounts to various countries in 2025, the United States ranked first with an absolute advantage of 2.184 billion USD (2,184,198 thousand USD), accounting for 19.1% of South Korea's total cosmetics exports, climbing strongly by 15.0% year-on-year. Looking back at history, South Korea's cosmetics exports to the US ranked second for the first time in 2021, broke the 1 billion USD mark for the first time in 2023, and finally historically surpassed China in 2025, making the US the largest export country for K-beauty.
In sharp contrast to this is the continuous shrinkage of K-beauty in the Chinese market. In 2025, South Korea's cosmetics exports to China plummeted by 19.0% year-on-year, dropping to 2.018 billion USD (2,018,311 thousand USD), with its share sliding to 17.7%. It should be noted that in 2021, the proportion of South Korea's cosmetics exports to China once exceeded 50%, while in the first half of 2025, this proportion fell below 20% for the first time, finally settling at 17.7% for the full year. This reflects the comprehensive import substitution of K-beauty by Chinese domestic beauty brands, as well as the complete shift of South Korean enterprises' strategic focus to mature Western markets.
Export Landscape Converging Towards Mature and Emerging Potential Markets Bilaterally
Through a comprehensive multipolar strategy, the South Korean cosmetics industry has successfully mitigated the geopolitical security and commercial dividend loss risks brought about by relying solely on the Chinese market. In 2025, South Korea's overall cosmetics export countries expanded significantly from 172 in 2024 to 202, essentially penetrating most mainstream countries globally.
Among the top ten countries in the overall foreign trade landscape, multi-point blossoming features were evident:
The European market showed a historical explosion: Poland, as a transit hub for K-beauty entering Eastern Europe and the EU, saw its import volume soar by 111.7% year-on-year in 2025, reaching 282 million USD (282,408 thousand USD), jumping from 14th the previous year to 9th; the UK market surged by 53.8% year-on-year, reaching 230 million USD, ranking 11th; the Netherlands, as a logistics hub, also achieved a high-speed growth of 42.8%. France, as a global premium beauty stronghold, also entered the top twenty export markets for the first time with an extremely high growth rate of 73.2% (134 million USD). This series of performances confirmed K-beauty's comprehensive penetration in traditional European retail channels (such as Boots, DM, and other pharmacy chains) and e-commerce platforms.
Middle East and North America strongholds continued to consolidate: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) imported 286 million USD of K-beauty in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 70.6% (67.2% according to customs data), jumping to 8th place, showing K-beauty's massive success in developing the premium Halal beauty market. In North America, in addition to the US taking the lead, Canada also rose to 12th place with an extremely high growth rate of 52.2% (186 million USD).
Traditional East Asian strongholds differentiated: The Japanese market maintained its 3rd position in 2025, with sales growing steadily by 4.9% year-on-year to 1.087 billion USD, showing Japanese consumers' long-term stickiness to K-beauty's extreme cost-effectiveness; Hong Kong, China (+20.4%, 4th) and Taiwan, China (+19.8%, 7th) maintained high growth rates; while the Vietnamese market saw a 10.0% decline, indicating an increasingly white-hot competitive landscape between local brands and Chinese/Korean beauty brands in the Southeast Asian market.
The specific changes in South Korea's top twenty cosmetics export destinations between 2024 and 2025 are as follows:
| Ranking | 2024 | 2025 | YoY Growth Rate | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country / Region | Export Amount (Thousand USD) | Share | Country / Region | Export Amount (Thousand USD) | Share | ||
| - | Total (172 Countries) | 10,177,312 | 100.0% | Total (202 Countries) | 11,417,570 | 100.0% | 12.2% |
| 1 | China | 2,492,073 | 24.5% | USA | 2,184,198 | 19.1% | 15.0% |
| 2 | USA | 1,899,196 | 18.7% | China | 2,018,311 | 17.7% | -19.0% |
| 3 | Japan | 1,035,583 | 10.2% | Japan | 1,086,741 | 9.5% | 4.9% |
| 4 | Hong Kong, China | 579,689 | 5.7% | Hong Kong, China | 697,726 | 6.1% | 20.4% |
| 5 | Vietnam | 529,357 | 5.2% | Vietnam | 476,437 | 4.2% | -10.0% |
| 6 | Russian Federation | 405,628 | 4.0% | Russian Federation | 442,664 | 3.9% | 9.1% |
| 7 | Taiwan, China | 288,676 | 2.8% | Taiwan, China | 345,853 | 3.0% | 19.8% |
| 8 | Thailand | 225,628 | 2.2% | United Arab Emirates | 286,490 | 2.5% | 67.2% |
| 9 | United Arab Emirates | 171,344 | 1.7% | Poland | 282,408 | 2.5% | 111.7% |
| 10 | Singapore | 154,580 | 1.5% | Thailand | 251,392 | 2.2% | 11.4% |
| 11 | Malaysia | 152,033 | 1.5% | UK | 229,805 | 2.0% | 53.8% |
| 12 | UK | 149,375 | 1.5% | Canada | 186,287 | 1.6% | 52.2% |
| 13 | Indonesia | 136,587 | 1.3% | Indonesia | 168,071 | 1.5% | 23.1% |
| 14 | Poland | 133,431 | 1.3% | Australia | 165,971 | 1.5% | 48.7% |
| 15 | Canada | 122,435 | 1.2% | Malaysia | 162,132 | 1.4% | 6.6% |
| 16 | Australia | 111,634 | 1.1% | Singapore | 147,218 | 1.3% | -4.8% |
| 17 | Kazakhstan | 97,745 | 1.0% | Netherlands | 137,699 | 1.2% | 42.8% |
| 18 | Netherlands | 96,425 | 0.9% | France | 134,065 | 1.2% | 73.2% |
| 19 | Philippines | 91,272 | 0.9% | Kazakhstan | 122,112 | 1.1% | 24.9% |
| 20 | Kyrgyzstan | 81,627 | 0.8% | Philippines | 112,191 | 1.0% | 22.9% |
From a regional perspective, growth in Europe and North America was the most aggressive, while East Asia maintained the stability of its traditional advantageous tier, essentially constituting K-beauty's anti-risk geopolitical layout overseas of "using defense as offense, and multipolar diversion."
III. Evolution of Export Category Structure: Global Divergence of Basic Skincare and High-Elasticity Long-Tail Categories
The import and export and domestic output value structure of South Korean cosmetics in 2025 showed an extremely clear operational trajectory: "basic skincare as the foundation, high-value-added tech penetration, and long-tail high-elasticity category breakthroughs."
Basic Skincare and Makeup: The Ballast Stones of Evergreen Broad Market
In the 11.418 billion USD export market in 2025, basic cosmetic products (skincare) still occupied an absolute dominant position. Its export amount reached 8.532 billion USD (8,532,021 thousand USD), accounting for 74.7% of total exports, a year-on-year increase of 11.5%. Makeup products closely followed, with exports reaching 1.505 billion USD (1,505,132 thousand USD), accounting for 13.2%, a year-on-year increase of 11.9%1. The two classic categories combined accounted for 87.9% of total exports, forming the core of K-beauty's global consumer perception. From the perspective of domestic production performance, South Korea's domestic cosmetics production value slightly increased by 2.3% year-on-year in 2025, hitting a historic high of 17.9382 trillion KRW1. In the production output value structure, basic cosmetics (10.32 trillion KRW, accounting for 57.5%) and makeup (2.84 trillion KRW, accounting for 15.8%) were equally core drivers.
Among them, the production trends of subdivided categories revealed the latest consumer demand trends:
Basic Skincare Subdivisions: Face masks and eye masks saw the highest production growth rate, surging by 28.3% year-on-year, followed by hand/foot skin softening products (+18.2%) and body products (+16.0%). "At-home medical aesthetics" remains a rigid demand for global consumers.
Makeup Subdivisions: Lipsticks and lip liners welcomed the highest output value growth of 13.5% in 2025, with setting sprays (+13.3%) and lip gloss/lip balm (+10.6%) also performing strongly. Makeup consumption is shifting towards "strong lock-in, high convenience, and personalized lip makeup."
Long-Tail Breakthroughs in Haircare, Baby, and Nail Categories
In addition to the two core categories above, long-tail categories showed astonishing export explosive power in 2025:
Haircare Products: Exports surged by 27.2% in 2025 to reach 587 million USD, with its share rising to 5.1%, indicating that the Korean concept of "scalp microecology and refined anti-hair loss" is rapidly being exported globally.
Baby Cosmetics: Exports surged by 44.0%, reaching 56.825 million USD, reflecting the extremely high trust of overseas consumers in Korean maternal and infant products.
Nail Products: Exports grew by 28.3% year-on-year to reach 31.763 million USD.
Conversely, aromatic products (perfume) and deodorant products performed weakly on the export side, plunging by 37.0% and 23.4% year-on-year, respectively. This shows that in fragrance and deodorant categories highly reliant on emotional value and brand history, Korean brands still face strong interception by Western fragrance giants.
Functional Cosmetics Stably Account for 40% of Domestic Production
The production value of functional cosmetics in South Korea in 2025 was 7.18 trillion KRW. Although it decreased slightly by 2.3% year-on-year, it still accounted for as high as 40.0% of the total production value. Among them, the output value of multi-functional products reached 3.49 trillion KRW (accounting for 19.4%), wrinkle improvement products reached 2.00 trillion KRW (11.2%), and the output values of whitening products (+9.7%) and sunscreen products (+9.4%) both grew rapidly, becoming the underlying logic for brands to build product premiums.
IV. Dramatic Changes in South Korea's Domestic Industry Ecosystem: The Leap of Indie Brands
Looking at the production performance rankings of South Korean cosmetics responsible sales enterprises (brands) in 2025, a large number of agile, high-profile, capital-driven emerging indie brands achieved rapid status leaps, such as APR, The Founders, and Gudai Global.
APR Corporation: As the mastermind behind the global "at-home beauty device tech revolution," its production performance skyrocketed by 177.8% from 102.6 billion KRW in 2024 to 285 billion KRW, its ranking surging from 21st to 4th, closely trailing Korea's Aekyung. This marks that the production of at-home beauty tech devices is rapidly growing into an industrial high ground with a trillion-won imagination space within the K-beauty chain.
The Founders Inc. (Parent company of Anua): Its output value surged by 50% from 152.5 billion KRW to 228.5 billion KRW, its ranking jumping to 5th.
Gudai Global Inc. (Parent company of Beauty of Joseon): Its output value greatly increased by 68.6% to 184.1 billion KRW, its ranking jumping from 18th to 9th.
Benow Inc.: Its output value soared by 52.9% to 166.2 billion KRW, ranking 11th.
Conversely, d'Alba Global Inc., which ranked 3rd in 2024, saw its 2025 output value halved from 332.8 billion KRW to 166.1 billion KRW, plummeting to 12th. This exposes the systemic flaw that independent beauty brands, after rapid explosions, are highly susceptible to severe output value fluctuations if they fail to establish deep channel and technological moats once global traffic trends shift.
It is particularly noteworthy that among the top ten single brand products in production, the "SKIN1004 Madagascar Centella Hyalu-Cica Water-Fit Sun Serum" produced by Craver Corporation newly broke into the 10th spot with an output value of 49.1 billion KRW. This is the first time in history that an independent, affordable single product entirely focused on being a viral hit on overseas social media has entered the top-producing single product list in South Korea, heralding the potential disruption of traditional premium high-end beauty by the global trend of "affordable efficacy."
V. Super Concentration of the CDMO Industry and the Symbiosis of Vertical Manufacturing Ecosystems
Behind the surging tide of South Korean cosmetics exports in 2025 lies a highly developed "super CDMO symbiotic ecosystem."
Structural Differentiation of Industry Participants: R&D Outsourcing and the Exit of Small Factories
Analyzing the overall landscape of South Korean cosmetics operators in 2025 reveals an intriguing scissors-gap phenomenon:
A significant decrease in the number of manufacturing enterprises (factories): Dropping from 4,439 in 2024 to 4,158 in 2025, a net decrease of 281 enterprises. This indicates that under the wave of the country's comprehensive tightening of environmental and safety assessment regulations (such as the upcoming 2028 mandatory safety assessment), technologically backward and low-capacity small and medium-sized local OEM workshops are undergoing a harsh round of supply-side elimination and exit.
A steady rise in the number of responsible sales enterprises (brands/operators): Increasing from 27,932 in 2024 to 28,412, an increase of 480. This shows that in the era of global D2C and influencer e-commerce, the birth of emerging creative brands remains extremely active.
This structural differentiation of "major manufacturing consolidation, massive brand explosion" directly pushed underlying manufacturing dividends to top-tier super CDMO platforms possessing extremely high R&D capabilities and global elastic delivery capacities.
COSMAX Surpasses Kolmar to Take the Crown, Super ODM Factories Take All
In 2025, the total output value of South Korea's overall Original Design Manufacturing (ODM) enterprises climbed by 21.4% from 4.33 trillion KRW to 5.26 trillion KRW. This confirms that because indie beauty adopts an "asset-light, marketing-heavy" model, the vast majority of their output value is handed over to third-party professional ODMs.
COSMAX: COSMAX's domestic total production surged by 19.5% in 2025 to 1.61 trillion KRW (market share of 30.6%), surpassing Korea Kolmar. This was due to its extremely high minimum order quantity (MOQ) elasticity support for global micro indie brands and its world-leading formula library reserves.
Kolmar: Its output value slipped from 1.42 trillion KRW in 2024 to 1.30 trillion KRW (share of 24.7%), ranking 2nd.
COSMECCA Advances Triumphantly: Its output value soared by 41.2% year-on-year to 353.1 billion KRW, sitting firmly in the 3rd spot.
These three super giants monopolized 62% of South Korea's total beauty ODM output value, forming an unshakable global beauty contract manufacturing oligopoly alliance.
The Explosion of Specialized Vertical Champion Factories
Below the super giants, vertical contract manufacturing giants focusing on niche tracks also recorded extremely impressive results:
CNF Co., Ltd.: As a large factory mainly focusing on sheet mask and local patch technology, its output value soared by 55.9% year-on-year to 281.1 billion KRW, jumping to 4th place.
COSVISION Co., Ltd.: As a contract manufacturing subsidiary under Amorepacific, its output value vastly increased by 42.3% to 202.2 billion KRW, rising to 6th.
B&B KOREA Co., Ltd.: Output value increased from 114.7 billion to 152.2 billion KRW, a year-on-year growth of 32.7%1.
These mid-tier advanced factories, through saturated R&D on specific product formats (such as freeze-dried masks, waterless makeup, sensitive skin safe sunscreens), ensure that front-end indie beauty brands can complete the entire process from new product conception to global distribution in just 4-6 weeks when facing shifts in international trends.
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