[News Figures] Chairman Lee Kyung-soo Who Built the World's No.1 Cosmetics ODM Company

Lee Kyung-soo, Chairman of COSMAX (photo), first set foot in China in 2004 as a domestic cosmetics Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) company. Chairman Lee predicted that the Chinese market, with a per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of only $1,400 to $1,500 at the time, would experience rapid growth based on its enormous consumer power. Twenty years later, China's per capita GDP has reached $12,600. The size of the Chinese cosmetics market amounts to 98.4 trillion KRW.

In 2013, Chairman Lee established COSMAX Guangzhou and focused on localization. By operating a local R&I (Research & Innovation) center in China, the company developed products tailored to the skin and preferences of local Chinese clients and consumers. In particular, the lip tint products introduced to the Chinese market matched the preferences of Chinese consumers who prioritize moisturizing, surpassing a cumulative production volume of 200 million units.

▲Lee Kyung-soo, the newly appointed chairman of COSMAX

They also built an all-around system. This was to proactively respond to the expansion of the Chinese online cosmetics market by supporting all areas from product planning, research and development, production, to manufacturing. Especially reflecting the fast product replacement cycle characteristic of the online market, the time from product request to launch was shortened to 2 to 3 months. As a result, Chinese sales, which were less than 10 billion KRW until 2008, exceeded 100 billion KRW in 2014 and surpassed 660 billion KRW in 2021. Currently, the number of clients in China is about 1,000, making it the country with the second-largest number of clients after Korea. COSMAX counts global cosmetics leader L'Or?al Group, China's top cosmetics company BY-HEALTH, and the largest local online brand Perfect Diary among its clients.

Production volume is also among the largest in China. COSMAX Group operates seven factories within China. The annual total production capacity (CAPA) of COSMAX’s Chinese subsidiaries reaches 1.49 billion units, exceeding the Chinese population. They have also begun constructing a new headquarters building, scheduled for completion in 2026. The COSMAX China new headquarters site is located in the Xinzhuang Industrial Zone in Shanghai. It will be built on a 13,000㎡ (approximately 4,000 pyeong) site with a total floor area of 73,000㎡ (about 22,000 pyeong).

Chairman Lee is regarded as a pioneer who expanded the horizon of the Korean cosmetics industry onto the global stage. Born in 1946, he graduated from Seoul National University’s College of Pharmacy and began his career in the sales team at Dong-A Pharmaceutical. He then served as Executive Director of Marketing at Oricom and Daewoong Pharmaceutical. In 1992, aiming to become a research and development (R&D) and production specialized company, he founded COSMAX. From the early days, Chairman Lee emphasized an export-first policy and technological innovation. Besides the Chinese market, he diversified markets by establishing subsidiaries in the United States and key ASEAN countries such as Indonesia and Thailand. As a result, COSMAX became the world’s number one ODM company. COSMAX has grown into a global ODM company operating 23 production facilities (as of the end of 2022) in seven countries worldwide, including China, Indonesia, and Thailand.

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