▲ Foreign visitors receive cosmetics consultations at the 2026 K-Beauty Expo Korea held at KINTEX in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province.
Driven by the K-culture craze, overseas direct sales from South Korea surged by over 40% in the third quarter of this year.
The transaction value reached its highest level in six years.
On the other hand, overseas direct purchases, commonly known as direct imports, declined for the second consecutive quarter for the first time ever.
The rate of decline itself also recorded an all-time high.
According to the "September 2026 Online Shopping Trends" released by Statistics Korea today (the 2nd), online overseas direct sales in the third quarter were tallied at 1.0944 trillion won.
This represents a 40.7% increase compared to the same period a year ago.
Online overseas direct sales for the third quarter are the highest in six years since 2020 (1.6567 trillion won).
The growth rate for the same quarter is also the largest since 2023 (57.1%).
Among overseas direct sales, duty-free shop sales jumped 90.5% to 371.7 billion won.
By region, high growth rates in overseas direct sales were recorded in China (62.3%), the United States (30.4%), and ASEAN (62.3%).
By product category, sales were highest in cosmetics (636.3 billion won), clothing and fashion-related products (92.3 billion won), and records, videos, and musical instruments (84.4 billion won).
Statistics Korea explained that overseas direct sales increased due to the popularity of K-pop and K-cosmetics.
In terms of growth rate, notable increases were seen in cosmetics (47.1%), records, videos, and musical instruments (14.8%), and food and beverages (32.5%).
Cosmetics accounted for the vast majority of duty-free shop sales at 306 billion won.
▲ Trends in Overseas Direct Sales and Purchases
Online overseas direct purchases (imports) fell 6.3% to 1.9893 trillion won.
Overseas direct purchases declined for the second straight quarter, following the previous quarter.
This marks the first time that overseas direct purchases have decreased for two consecutive quarters since related statistics began to be compiled in 2014.
The decline rate is also the largest on record.
The sluggishness in overseas direct purchases appears to be influenced by the lingering effects of a high exchange rate through the early part of the third quarter and a decline in the price competitiveness of Chinese direct-import products compared to before.
In fact, direct purchases increased in countries such as Japan (32.4%), but decreased in China (-9.1%) and the United States (-11.1%).
Looking at growth rates by product category, increases were seen in sports and leisure goods (13.8%), while decreases were recorded in clothing and fashion-related products (-15.5%) and cosmetics (-13.3%).
Online shopping transaction values for September stood at 24.9717 trillion won, up 4.1% from the same month last year.
Increases were led by automobiles and automotive parts (30.9%), food services (5.9%), and agricultural, livestock, and fishery products (9.7%).
The growth in automobiles and automotive parts was analyzed to be driven by demand for imported electric vehicles such as Teslas and used car transactions, which are primarily traded online.
Among online shopping, mobile shopping transaction values rose 5.4% to 19.0846 trillion won.
While transaction values decreased in clothing (-7.9%), mobile shopping transactions increased in food services (6.0%), agricultural, livestock, and fishery products (15.2%), and travel and transportation services (8.7%).
The mobile shopping share of online shopping expanded by 1.0 percentage point to 76.4%.
In particular, the proportion of mobile shopping transaction values was high in food services (99.1%), e-coupon services (92.2%), and pet supplies (84.3%).
(Photo: Provided by Statistics Korea, Yonhap News)
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