THADD and K-Beauty
According to industry sources, the Chinese government is putting pressure on South Korean cosmetics manufacturers in the wake of the South Korean government’s decision in favor of the deployment of the THAAD system in the Korean Peninsula.
“These days, sanitary inspections in China targeting functional cosmetics are becoming more and more rigid,” a cosmetics supplier explained, adding, “In that country, such inspections are completed in nine to 13 months in most cases, but the ratio of those taking at least one year is increasing nowadays.” He went on to say that the period of one year in the fashion-conscious industry is something like a ban on business and Chinese companies are taking advantage of the recent trend to release similar products.
The Chinese government is applying much stricter import customs clearance procedures than before as well. Before the South Korean government’s decision, it used to check only 1% or so of cosmetics products imported from South Korea. After the decision, however, total inspections are becoming increasingly frequent. “The length of the waiting period following the submission of customs clearance documents has increased from 45 days or so to an average of 60 days,” the supplier continued to say.
For most South Korean cosmetics manufacturers, the Chinese market is a huge profit source. For example, Amore Pacific’s sales in China and the other Asian countries increased 49% from a year ago to 387.9 billion won in the second quarter of this year, when its overseas sales totaled 417.3 billion won and its sales in North America posted an increase of 26%. LG Household & Health Care’s sales in China jumped by 56% lately based on an increased supply of its luxury cosmetics products.
won (US$173.2 million) from 151.3 billion won (US$131.5 million) and to 143.9 billion won (US$125.1 million) from 120 billion won (US$104.3 million), respectively.
This is a stark contrast to the fact that both sales and operating income declined in the telecommunication service market. Industry watchers say that Apple hurried to launch its music streaming service without K-Pop in order to glean big data. The same went for Netflix, they say.
The utilization of big data in IPTV and music streaming service is staying at an early level. But as more data are accumulated, their power exponentially increases. This is one characteristic of big data. To wrap it up In a nutshell, they rushed to the Korean market in order to Korean users’ content use habits.