The Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Korea International Exhibition Center announced on the 23rd that 439 K-Beauty companies participated in the '2025 Cosmobute Seoul X K-Beauty Festa' held from the 28th to the 30th of last month, resulting in a total of $110 million (approximately 150 billion won) worth of export consultations, with 17 export contracts worth a total of $66,000 signed on-site. The ministry added that $2.46 million is expected to result in contracts within this year.
This year's exhibition was the largest ever, with 53,000 attendees, an increase of more than 5,000 compared to last year, and 1,903 B2B consultations conducted, up by 1,001 from last year.
This year, in collaboration with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Korea International Exhibition Center, overseas buyers from 161 companies in 51 countries, including global big buyers like Sephora, Unilever, and Pan Pacific International Holdings (PPIH), were invited, and B2B consultations were supported through pre-matching with overseas buyers to promote exports and overseas expansion of domestic K-Beauty small and medium-sized enterprises.
Looking at the successful cases of individual participating companies, FarmsBnB (CEO Jung Yong-mo) showcased and exhibited four types of basic and functional cosmetics at the exhibition, selling out on-site. Shindo P&G (CEO Ahn Do-hyun) successfully exported a new cosmetics brand to Vietnam for the first time by utilizing the distribution infrastructure of Vietnamese buyers. Hanamoa (CEO Choi Yoon-jung) received a transaction proposal from Don Quijote in Japan after export consultations and is currently in follow-up negotiations, expecting to secure an export contract worth up to $1 million upon entry.
Lee Soon-bae, director of global growth policy at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, noted, 'This exhibition was able to achieve visible results through collaboration between the public and private sectors, expanding the visit of promising overseas buyers and improving the quality of participating products,' and stated, 'We will strengthen customized support, including technology development support and ESG management support, so that the K-Beauty ecosystem can expand despite the rapid changes in the external environment, such as the strengthening of global protectionism.'