I've been working on a recent project for our client in South Korea to find a health supplement manufacturer in Germany. Through the Korean consumer trend research and our trade data of German pharmaceutical exporters, we could find the best-matched manufacturer for the client.
Health supplement import is sharply increasing in South Korea
The market analysis revealed that the import market for health supplements in Korea has sharply increased by 28.8% ($786.96 million) in 2019 compared to 2018, while imported weight increased by 19.1% during the same period.
The top 10 imported health supplement are as follows:
1. Vitamins and minerals 2. Probiotics 3. General health functional supplements 4. EPA and DHA 5. Vitamins/EPA and DHA 6. Multivitamins 7. Vitamin C 8. Protein 9. Vitamins/minerals/fibre 10. Vitamins/minerals/EPA and DHA
Understanding top 10 sales of health supplement by function in the Korean market is very important. In 2019, the top 5 items accounted for 82.7% of the total sales, and the top 10 items accounted for 89.8% of the total. Products that improve memory accounted for the highest share at 1,266.7 billion won, followed by products that improve blood circulation and fatigue improvement. I assume that this trend, which is very different from the health supplement sales trend in Europe, is due to the study and performance stress in Korean culture.
The top 10 sales status in the Korean market by function is as follows:
1. Improves memory
2. Improves blood circulation
3. Fatigue improvement
4. Improving immune function
5. Sulfation
6. Menopausal women's health
7. Intestinal health
8. Eye Health
9. Liver health
10 Blood Triglyceride Improvement
The number one importing country was the United States, which accounted for 60.3% of the total, and the top five countries in the order of Canada, Germany, India, and Taiwan accounted for 81.7% of the total.
In 2018, the annual sales of supplements in Germany were about 4.2 billion dollars, with a growth rate of 3.0% compared to the previous year. In terms of sales by item in the German supplement market in 2018, vitamins and minerals accounted for the largest portion at about 40.9%; herbs and botanicals accounted for about 37.8%, followed by sports nutrition, meal replacement, homeopathic supplements, and specialty supplements at about 21.3%.
Vitamins and minerals, the largest segment of the German supplement market, recorded annual sales of approximately $1.7 billion, a 3.0% year-over-year growth rate. It has achieved and exceeded about $ 1.8 billion in 2021.
In terms of packaging, many German manufacturers appear to be using plastic tubs or glass bottles for the health supplement. We needed to delete these manufacturers from the short lists since Korean consumers are fascinated by mobility and convenience. They prefer to consume the vitamin without water as a powder in disposal packaging. Many people skip breakfast at home and eat it on the way to work, or some companies even offer breakfast at the company cafeteria.
In general, Koreans love German cars and German pharmaceuticals. When Korean tourists visit Germany, they have a full shopping list of pharmaceuticals. Bloggers are sharing their pharmaceutical shopping experiences and shopping lists. You can easily search the top 10 pharmaceutical shopping lists in Germany on the South Korean search engine Naver.
There are multiple online purchasing agency sites run by Korean-Germans that deliver pharmaceuticals from Germany to Korean consumers directly.
Discover more about exporting pharmaceuticals to the Korean market? Then, please contact us. info@jennydata.com
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