Surface Care in South Korea

PROSPECTS

Natural ingredients in surface care fuel growth

Chemophobia is still largely influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions, and manufacturers are producing surface care products with natural ingredients with enhanced cleaning functions. The Korea Consumer Agency regularly tests major surface care products for chloromethylisothiazolinone (CMIT), polyhexamethylene guanidine (PHMG) and other harmful ingredients in order to prevent a repeat of the deaths and injuries associated with the Oxy humidifier disinfectant in the 2000s.

Multi-purpose cleaners lead category growth

Multi-purpose cleaners is expected to post a positive CAGR over the forecast period and the subcategory will continue to lead surface care overall. These products can be used for cleaning toilets and bathrooms, kitchen surfaces, kitchen appliances such as ovens and cooker hoods, floors and even fruits and baby products.

Shifting from offline to online distribution channel

Surface care products sell mainly via the offline distribution channel particularly hypermarkets because most consumers purchase such products while doing their grocery shopping at such outlets. Surface care products are often placed at the end of aisles and with discounted price promotions.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Domestic players dominate surface care

LG Household & Health Care Ltd maintained the leading position followed by KMPC Co Ltd in 2019. LG, with its own brand Homestar, introduced various types of surface care products such as multi-purpose and task-specific types for range hoods.

Shrinking presence of multinational firms

Despite multinational firms producing various types of surface care products and continuously adding them to store shelves, the share of these firms has kept decreasing due to stronger presence of domestic players including small and medium-sized enterprises such as Sugar Bubble and Suomi and the boycott of Japanese products. Multinational firms also showed relatively old types of products thus they could not catch the preferences of consumers in the market.

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