Amorepacific, Shopee ink partnership for Southeast Asian market

Amorepacific Corp., the South Korean beauty giant, has signed a partnership agreement with Shopee, a Singaporean e-commerce platform, to expand its influence in the booming online beauty business in Asia.

Amorepacific said on Feb. 16 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Shopee to strengthen its regional partnership and accelerate the growth of “K-beauty” in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam.

“Based on the regional network and customer database built by our key partner Shopee, we plan to further expand our beauty business in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) this year,” said Kim Young-soo, head of Amorepacific APAC regional headquarters.

The two companies already have a strong relationship.

Amorepacific, which launched on Shopee Mall in 2018, saw its gross merchandise volume grow more than 13 times and its regional e-commerce business double by 2020.

Under the new partnership, the Korean beauty company aims to further tap into the Southeast Asian market by introducing its major products under the brands of Sulwhasoo, Laneige, Mamonde, Ryo, Mise en scene, Innisfree and Etude, onto the Shopee platform.

Amorepacific also plans to unveil its products on Shopee Taiwan.

The Korean beauty giant posted lackluster results last year, weighed by the negative fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Its operating profit fell 70% to 150.7 billion won ($137 million) in 2020, while revenue declined 21.5% to 4.93 trillion won.

Through aggressive overseas expansion and digital platform deals, the company aims to achieve 380 billion won in operating profit on revenue of 5.6 trillion won this year.

In line with such efforts, Amorepacific invested 3 billion won in multi-channel network beauty startup Different Millions (DMIL) in 2020.

Write to Ji-Hye Min at spop@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.