South Korea’s leading cosmetics conglomerate AmorePacific Group is stepping up its efforts to expand its presence in South East Asia in hopes to ensure beauty predominance in Asia.

“South Asia is home to 30 percent of the world’s 30 megacities with a population of over 10 million people,” said AmorePacific Group Chairman Suh Kyung-bae on Wednesday. “We will work hard to reinforce our presence in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand and gain broader access to Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and India,” he added.

The group plans to add a store to each in Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi in Vietnam. The Vietnamese cosmetics market has been growing by more than 15 percent annually to reach 250 billion won ($212.5 million). In addition, the country is relatively young as 70 percent of the country’s total 95.26 million people are under 40.

The cosmetics giant hopes the South East Asian market could become the stepping stone for its vision to become a ‘Great Company’. The AEC, the common market for 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), commands a combined population of 630 million. Their cosmetics market is projected to grow to 6.2 trillion won by 2020 from 2.4 trillion won as of 2014 with a rapidly growing middle class.

AmorePacific Group has subsidiaries in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam where its five most popular brands Sulwhasoo, Laneige, Mamonde, Innisfree and Etude are drawing more and more customers. It is attracting about 40,000 new customers per month in the countries, the group said.

The group focuses on research and development for the ASEAN market in Singapore. It established a new manufacturing subsidiary in Nusajaya in Malaysia with a plan to complete the construction of its production factory by 2020. The region is a strategically important point as it is adjacent to some of major Asian countries.

Thanks to the growing business in the ASEAN market, AmorePacific Group raked in 825.3 billion won from overseas business in the first half of last year, up 46 percent from the same period of the previous year.

On Thursday, shares of AmorePacific fell 1.58 percent to finish at 311,000 won in Seoul trading.

By Jeon Ji-hyun

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