K-beauty firm joins L’Oreal, Estee Lauder as world’s third-largest pure-play beauty company
APR founder and CEO Kim Byung-hoon (APR)
South Korean beauty tech firm APR has vaulted to the top of Asia’s beauty industry by market capitalization, nudging its way into the world’s top tier while leaving big players in Korea and neighboring countries in its wake.
The Seoul-based company ended April with a market capitalization of roughly 16 trillion won ($10.9 billion), well ahead of domestic rivals Amorepacific and LG Household & Health Care, which sit in the 8 trillion won and 4 trillion won range, respectively.
Regional peers also lag: As of Monday, Japan’s Shiseido had a market capitalization of about 1.27 trillion yen ($8 billion), while China’s Proya cosmetics stood at around 24.5 billion yuan ($3.6 billion).
Only a handful of companies now outrank APR by market value, among them L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, Unilever and Beiersdorf, though the latter two are diversified consumer goods players. Strip those out, and APR ranks as the world’s third-largest pure-play beauty company, behind L’Oreal at $229 billion and Estee Lauder at $28.6 billion.
APR shares have risen more than 80 percent this year, hitting a 52-week high of 469,500 won on Wednesday — a more than sixfold increase from the 52-week low of 73,200 won recorded in May 2025 — and were trading in the 420,000 won range on Monday. The company debuted on the Kospi in February 2024 with a market cap of 2.4 trillion won on its first day.
Overseas demand has been the main engine powering that rise.
International revenue surpassed domestic sales for the first time in 2024, reaching nearly 400 billion won, then more than tripled in 2025 to 1.23 trillion won, accounting for over 80 percent of the total revenue of 1.53 trillion won.
The US has led the charge, with its share of total revenue climbing to 37.5 percent last year from 21.9 percent in 2024, as sales jumped nearly eightfold from 2023 to 2025 to 572 billion won. APR is now taking that playbook to Europe, with products rolling out through Sephora across 17 countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
“APR is likely to sustain rapid growth there on the back of its rising global brand recognition,” said a Seoul-based analyst at Shinyoung Securities, projecting Europe’s share of revenue could reach around 12 percent, on par with its Japan business.
The momentum has not gone unnoticed. APR was recently named to TIME’s list of the 100 most influential companies of 2026. It is the only Korean company on this year’s list, alongside the likes of Alphabet, Nvidia, Meta and SpaceX.
The magazine described APR as leading “the next wave of K-beauty growth worldwide.”
minmin@heraldcorp.com