SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Last week, attentive visitors in Times Square saw an ad that read roughly as “Fourth Anniversary of Beauty Chant and Celebration of the Global Micro-surgery season“ on the Times Square screen.
In recent years, ads for Chinese enterprises have appeared more frequently on the Times Square and NASDAQ screens. This has gotten the attention of the the Korean plastic surgery industry as these advertisements are not for individual orthopedic hospitals but for internet enterprises, the same internet enterprises that as a whole have received strong support from Chinese officials. While this will improve many things including service, it also represents strong competition with orthopedic hospitals.
Beauty Chant, which was established in 2011, has via the internet added thousands of hospitals to their catalog. Chinese consumers interested in plastic surgery can browse through the catalog and then via the Beauty Chant APP or the company’s service teams make surgery appointments. If Beauty Chant transcends the Korean market places its sights on the United States, the South Korean plastic surgery industry will not just be facing one orthopedic hospital, but a coalition of thousands of Chinese hospitals.
South Korea possesses the world’s most sophisticated plastic surgery technology. The quality of the plastic surgery being done in South Korea is something many Koreans are quite proud of. However, looking at the US and South Korean markets, it is apparent that there is a great gap between the plastic market in South Korea and the US. With China’s plastic surgery industry rapidly expanding and edging towards possible direct access to the US market, the South Korean plastic surgery industry may be affected.
In recent years, many consumers went through such Internet companies and thousands of people journey to South Korea each year to get plastic surgery. But, this year advertisements are being geared directly to people in the United States. Will this corporate strategy weaken the South Korean market as market choice is strengthened? Does this signal that Chinese consumers are looking at plastic surgery markets outside of South Korea? We will see what the future holds.
