Cosmax

This chapter describes the history of Cosmax as the largest ODM (Original Design Manufacturing)ODM (Original Design Manufacturing) company for cosmetics in the world. It describes equally how desire for its globalized technical expertise has expanded due to the Korean Wave as well as due to good management decisions during global lockdowns between 2020 to 2023 in many countries of the world. This has helped Cosmax take advantage of faster market turnaround in online sales, faster robotic production, more tailored cosmetics using AI (artificial intelligence) applied to the big data patterns of co-toxicities and co-allergies to create recommendations for individually-tailored cosmetic prescriptions that are healthier to a specific consumer, and more seamless applications of online tools and technologies like the metaverse. However, Cosmax is a doubly interesting case. For a long time, Cosmax expanded without the aid of the wider Korean Wave as well as expanded covertly. This is because it was a common global practice for Korean companies like Cosmax to do ODM styles of business (Original Design Manufacturing), in which larger or smaller companies outsource their harder market research and chemical/material research in cosmetics or production of cosmetics, with companies like Cosmax supporting and building other brands behind the scenes instead of stealing their images. So, the Korean company Cosmax is a silent partner behind approximately 600 Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, and global Western cosmetic brands now. It has over thirty years of ODM expertise in cosmetics and good business decisions throughout. This has made Cosmax the world’s largest cosmetics manufacturer, despite few even hearing of it. Increasingly now, with globalization of Korean visual aesthetics in the Korean Wave, a desire for Korean styles of cosmetics called “K-Beauty” is rising in purchases worldwide. Thus, Korean cosmetics industries are experiencing a tide that raises all boats: they saw a 21.3% increase in exports in 2021 compared to 2020, growing to 10,509.9 billion won ($8 billion). This is an all-time high for the collective “K-Beauty” industry. K-beauty exports are now are near the revenue of exports of Korean home appliances ($8.6 billion dollars), Korean pharmaceuticals ($8.4 billion dollars), and well over the export value of Korean mobile phones ($4.9 billion dollars). So in 2021 onward, instead of shrinking during lockdowns in many countries, the Korean trade balance of cosmetics production and exports increased by 28.6% from 2020, exceeding approximately $8 billion for the first time. So, on top of Cosmax’s past expertise in global cosmetics ODM, many global or national cosmetics brands now flock to Cosmax for alliances in order to enter the Korean market itself, or they seek Korean alliances to design and to produce cosmetics products that profit from the global Korean Wave in their own countries’ cosmetics purchasing patterns as well.