K-Beauty global sales in value grew 53% between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026, according to NielsenIQ. The fastest growth came from Brazil and Mexico (+135%), followed by the Middle East (+76%), Western Europe (+58%) and North America (+53%) while Asia-Pacific excluding China and Korea grew 27%.
This is the result of three different phases of development for Korean beauty.
In the 2000s and early 2010s, brands such as The Face Shop, Innisfree, Etude House and Missha made Korean beauty affordable, fresh and widely available. The rising popularity of Korean culture helped the model travel across Asia.
In the mid 2010’s, growth was concentrated in China. Duty-free and daigou demand surged alongside an average of more than 600,000 Chinese visitors to Korea a month. But then the rise of Chinese nationalism and the pandemic then exposed the risk of relying too heavily on one market and one channel.
Since 2020, K-Beauty has become a global category. E-commerce and social platforms let indie brands test demand quickly, while Korean consumers’ appetite for efficacy, ingredients and new products pushed the pace of innovation.
Export data confirms the shift. South Korea’s cosmetics exports reached a record $11.43bn in 2025. The US became the largest destination at $2.19bn, ahead of China at $2.01bn. Korea is now the world’s second-largest cosmetics exporter behind France.
What is the next phase for K-Beauty? K-Beauty is still at the beginning of its expansion across Latin America and the Middle East, while it moves beyond skincare into haircare, hybrid makeup, beauty tech and even perfume with brands like Borntostandout receiving investment from L’Oréal and rapidly expanding abroad. K-Beauty brands, if they want to succeed on the long run will now have to build repeat purchase, local inventory, regulatory capability and physical distribution.
