Anti-ageing to become new growth engine for South Korea

The Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI), a leading think tank in South Korea believes anti-ageing products and services could provide a new economic growth engine for the country. South Korea will be one of the fastest ageing nations over the next 15 years. Korea’s 65+ population rose from 7.2% in 2000 to 10.9% in 2010 and will reach 15.7% by 2020.

In 2011, South Korea’s anti-ageing market reached KRW11.9 trillion won with a growth rate of 10.1% pa. In a survey, 84.5% of corporate CEOs predicted anti-aging consumption would become a major trend.

Medical, cosmetics, consumer goods, and service industries are expected to enter each other’s fields, intensifying competition. Currently, the most common anti-ageing products are for the skin. In the last ten years, skin-aging cosmetics have accounted for about 50-80% of anti-ageing patent applications.

Innovation in technology, convergence, and biotechnology are boosting the industry. Recent cutting edge products include stem cell cosmetics, gene-activated cosmetics and peptide cosmetics. In addition, IT products such as remote life care consulting, and beauty and skin diagnosis applications for smart phones are already gaining attention.

South Korea’s traditional growth engines - IT, automobiles, shipping, and chemicals - are vulnerable to global economic cycles. Anti-ageing products should be more recession resistant.