South Korean expansion for Singapore’s Luxasia

Singapore’s Luxasia, a distributor of cosmetics, hair care products and fragrances in Asia, has plans for South Korea. The company has built its business by distributing Western brands in Asia.

It currently handles over 100 beauty and fragrance brands, including Burberry, Guerlain and Escada. The growth of Asian brands has created a new opportunity, which the company plans to explore for further growth, according to founder and CEO Patrick Chong. “What wed like to do with our Korean office is have it act as sourcing for all the Korean brands that we can sell to the world,” explained Chong during an interview with the South China Morning Post last month. “Or similarly in Japan, because there are many good brands, but many of them are too small to go out. We’ve registered our company officially in Korea, but the partners I’m looking for will take about a year to finalise the deal.”

With a slow-growing, saturated, intensely competitive domestic market, Korean brands are all looking for export opportunities. Founded in 1986, Luxasia is based in Singapore with offices in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, India and Vietnam. It has stores in Singapore.