Can rivals keep up as K-beauty speeds ahead?
Independent brands are driving much of the sector's export growth.
South Korean beauty brands are gaining global market share by launching products faster and expanding overseas, raising questions about whether global rivals can keep pace as consumers increasingly prioritise performance over price.
“The structural shift driving this growth is the rise of indie brands,” Shikhara Investment Management LP said in a July white paper. “These smaller, digitally native labels have built global followings by delivering comparable quality to legacy multinationals at a fraction of the price.”
The investment firm said Korean cosmetics exports rose 19% year on year in the first quarter before accelerating to 24% in May, citing Morgan Stanley Research data.
Europe posted the strongest growth, with exports up 71% in the first quarter and 83% in May, whilst shipments to the US increased 40% and 32%, respectively.
Shikhara attributed the gains to independent beauty brands supported by South Korea's original design manufacturing industry, which lets companies develop and launch products more quickly.
It cited Cosmecca Korea Co. Ltd. as an example of a manufacturer producing products for multiple brands, helping shorten development times and respond faster to changing consumer demand.
LF Beauty Holding Ltd., better known as Meiyume, also identified rapid innovation as a defining feature of K-beauty in a May report.
It said Korean brands continue to introduce products across skincare, colour cosmetics, and haircare, with barrier-repair skincare, vegan formulations, advanced textures, precision makeup applicators, and clinically positioned haircare driving innovation.
Consumer preferences vary by market. Meiyume said UK shoppers favour efficacy-focused skincare, US consumers prefer convenient, multifunctional products, and Indonesian consumers are increasingly seeking biotechnology-inspired skincare and high-performance haircare.
Global demand is expected to remain supportive. McKinsey & Company, Inc. said in a June report that the beauty market is forecast to grow 5% annually through 2030, with Southeast and Central Asia amongst the fastest-growing regions.
The consultancy said consumers are placing greater emphasis on product performance than price.
“In skin care, the long-standing rule that ‘premium equals performance’ no longer holds true,” McKinsey said..“Consumers are embracing lower-priced brands—especially those from dermatologist-backed and K-beauty players—that deliver visible results and clinical credibility without luxury price tags.”
Questions to ponder:
- Can established beauty brands match K-beauty's speed of innovation without sacrificing quality or profitability?
- If consumers increasingly buy based on product performance rather than price, how should beauty brands differentiate themselves?
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EXPERT OPINION
Korean indie brands move fast because several labels share the same factories and R&D, letting a new product launch across a dozen brands within months, while a typical multinational still takes over a year. Established brands cannot close that gap by simply moving faster; the system needs to change. Copying that speed across the whole portfolio would erode margins, since global brands depend on scale to stay profitable. It is more realistic to run two tracks: keep the big, proven products where the money is made, and build a smaller, faster local line through shared manufacturing, with regional teams given the authority to launch without waiting on headquarters. Speed alone is not enough if performance is what wins the sale. Indie brands are already proving results with clinical studies, so faster launches will not be a lasting edge on their own. What established brands still offer is a track record of consistent quality and safety across many markets, and combining that trust with faster, local launches is how they need to compete on both fronts.
According to Euromonitor International, K-beauty brands are expanding globally by pairing South Korea’s highly developed ODM (original design manufacturing) ecosystem with rapid innovation, digital marketing, and efficacy-led positioning. South Korean brands bring new products to market quickly by outsourcing formulation and manufacturing to specialist ODM companies, based on key k-beauty relevant and in-demand trends like ‘glass skin' look - responding faster to trends in skincare, dermocosmetics and ingredient-focused beauty, while brands leverage e-commerce, social commerce, influencer partnerships and retail collaborations to build awareness beyond Asia. The growing demand for science-backed skincare, multifunctional products and clinically proven benefits are trends that align closely with K-beauty’s strengths and support strong export growth in markets such as US & Europe. This agile model enables independent K-beauty brands to compete effectively and scale at speed against larger multinational beauty companies, giving consumers more choice and contributing to healthy competition. Globally well-known K-beauty brands such as COSRX, Beauty of Joseon also work with leading Korean ODM manufacturers, like Kolmar Korea and COSMAX, to scale international growth.