South Korea’s largest cosmetics AmorePacific Group posted 246.7 billion won ($219 million) in net profit in the second quarter in its best-ever performance for the first half thanks to strong performance of high-end line and unfazed popularity of Korean beauty products in Asia.

AmorePacific Group, the holding company of AmorePacific Corp. announced on Friday in a regulatory filing that it registered a consolidated net profit of 246.7 billion won, up 33 percent on year, in the second quarter ended June. The operating profit jumped 27.1 percent to 309.7 billion won from the same period last year to register a record-high for the April-June period as well as for the full first half. It posted 1.7 trillion won in sales, up 21.7 percent on year.

AmorePacific shares closed Friday at 388,000 won, down 12,000 won or 3.00 percent from the previous trading session.

For the first six months this year, the cosmetics company registered 728.8 billion won in operating profit, up 29.1 percent on year while the sales also expanded by 21.8 percent on year to record 3.5 trillion won. The company expects the full-year sales would easily exceed the 6 trillion won milestone this year.

Its operating profit margin surpassed 20 percent as the household cosmetics name gained impetus in luxury line.

Earnings were largely attributed to overseas. Although the absolute sales figure is much larger at home, its overseas business’s operating profit expanded by 60 percent compared with a gain of 9 percent at home. Sales from its global business jumped 46 percent on year to 417.3 billion won, outpacing growth of 13 percent in domestic sales to 1.04 trillion won.

Shipment to China and other parts of Asia jumped 50 percent. The company also made profit in Europe with sales rising 11 percent due to new product release and weaker won.

By Park In-hye and Park Eun-jin

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