CJ Olive Young’s consolidated annual revenue is on track to cross 6 trillion won this year, according to a July 1 report by Herald Business reporter Kim Jin, continuing a run in which the company has added a new leading digit to its revenue roughly every year since crossing 1 trillion won in 2020. Last year’s revenue hit 5.854 trillion won with operating profit of 732.8 billion won, and this year’s growth is being driven partly by direct entry into the US market and expansion into supplements through its wellness platform “Olive Better.”
The scale of Olive Young’s dominance is stark by any measure. After competitors GS Retail’s “Lalavla” and Lotte Shopping’s “Lohb’s” both shut down, Olive Young inherited the entire health-and-beauty store category by default. Per SensorTower data cited in the report, from May 2025 to April 2026 Olive Young accounted for 66 percent of all beauty-ecommerce app downloads in Korea and 78 percent of web visits — a share closer to monopoly than market leadership. It now runs 1,367 stores nationwide, including multiple locations in single neighborhoods like Myeongdong (8 stores) and Seongsu (6 stores), and has moved beyond pure retail into destination-style flagship spaces: “Beauty Mansion Seongsu,” a four-floor, roughly 1,650-square-meter building near Seongsu Station Exit 2, operates as a single beauty-focused complex rather than a conventional store. One beauty brand operator told Herald Business that hitting a sales threshold on Olive Young’s online store is effectively a prerequisite for getting an offline shelf slot at all, calling placement there “every brand’s dream.” Around 3,000 brands currently carry products through Olive Young.
Challengers are still finding room at the margins rather than the center. Daiso, selling beauty items priced at 1,000 to 5,000 won across roughly 1,600 stores nationwide, grew its beauty sales 70 percent year over year last year, prompting convenience stores to add their own low-price beauty shelves in response. A newer entrant, “Off Beauty,” run by Daemyung Chemical affiliate Q&B International, built out to 40 stores within a year of its May 2025 debut at Gwangjang Market by discounting up to 90 percent off list price, and is targeting 100 stores plus a location in Mongolia by year’s end. LS Securities researcher Oh Rin-a told the paper that K-beauty’s points of consumer contact are expanding past Olive Young, duty-free shops, and brand flagships into pharmacy-style warehouse retail, meaning the competitive field, while still overwhelmingly Olive Young’s to lose, is at least getting more crowded at the edges.
Source: Kim Jin, Herald Business, July 1, 2026.
