67% of Foreign Consumers Know K-BioHealth Products... ‘Samba’ Tops Pharmaceutical Products

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Two out of three overseas consumers are aware of Korea's biohealth products.

The Korea Health Industry Development Institute announced on the 14th that, according to a survey conducted from October to November last year targeting 9,120 consumers from 19 countries including the United States, Japan, and China, 67.1% of respondents were aware of specific Korean biohealth (pharmaceuticals, medical devices, cosmetics) products. This figure is higher than the 65.8% response rate from the previous year. Awareness of medical device products (65.8%) increased by 4.2 percentage points.

Awareness of Korea as a manufacturing country of biohealth products was 75.1%, also an improvement compared to 71.6% in 2021. Pharmaceuticals (63.8%→68.6%), medical devices (66.1%→70.0%), and cosmetics (82.3%→85.0%) all showed improvement compared to 2021.

However, the proportion of respondents who said they knew Korean biohealth companies slightly decreased from 62.9% to 60.5%. Among individual companies, Samsung Biologics had the highest recognition in pharmaceuticals, Samsung Medison in medical devices, and LG Saenghwalhwan-gang in cosmetics.

Overall satisfaction after using Korean biohealth products was 75.3 points, a decrease of 0.3 points from the previous year. When asked about their active willingness to recommend Korean products voluntarily, half (51.5%) responded affirmatively. The top reason for recommendation was ‘product efficacy’ (87.7%).

The influence of culture such as ‘K-POP’ on the purchase and use of Korean biohealth products scored 63.7 points. Scores were high in India (79.8 points), Thailand (72.3 points), and Vietnam (69.1 points).

As the government strives to attract foreign patients in the era of COVID-19 endemic (periodic outbreaks of infectious diseases), awareness of Korean medical services was 61.3%. After COVID-19, 48.4% of respondents said that the national brand and power awareness of Korean medical services ‘strengthened,’ while 12.0% said it ‘weakened.’ A representative from the Korea Health Industry Development Institute stated, “In countries with a high proportion of foreign patients in Korea such as China, Mongolia, and Vietnam, awareness of domestic medical services is high,” but added, “On the other hand, although the proportion is high in Japan and the United States, awareness of medical services is low, so active promotion is necessary.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.