K-Beauty Becomes Benchmark in U.K. Market as APR Sales Surge Quadruple-Digit Percent - Seoul Economic Daily

K-beauty is gaining a firm foothold in the U.K. market, according to the Seoul Economic Daily. The publication reports that Korean brands have moved beyond specialist online retailers into major British drugstore chains Boots and Superdrug and upscale department store Selfridges. Sarah Robb, a U.K.-based cosmetics safety assessor who has prepared safety assessment reports for leading brands including Medicube and Anua since around 2020, told the paper that K-beauty has become an established presence and that Western brands increasingly view it as a standard to aspire to. Korean-coined terms such as "ampoule" and ingredients such as PDRN are also spreading into how Western brands develop products.

APR (278470) is a key example of this trend. The company posted a quadruple-digit percentage increase in U.K. revenue in the first half of the year compared with a year earlier, and its Zero Pore Pad has held the No. 1 spot in Amazon UK's toner category from December of last year to the present.

In a separate development, GS Global (001250) is taking an equity stake in Hooxi Partners, a carbon credit specialist, to expand into the emissions trading and brokerage market. The company cites rising procurement burdens as total emissions allowances shrink and paid allocation expands. Founded in 2021, Hooxi handles the full credit process, from methodology development to operating reduction projects, and secures Korean Offset Credits and forward trading. Its revenue rose to 3.2 billion won in 2025 from 200 million won in 2024, and it projects revenue of 7.8 billion won and net profit of 3.3 billion won this year. The partners plan to identify further projects in electric bus conversion, solar, biomass and resource recycling, and to pursue overseas clients.

On regulation, the Ministry of Science and ICT said a revised enforcement decree of the Information Security Industry Act cleared a Cabinet meeting on the 20th. It removes the 300 billion won annual revenue threshold, extends the rule to all KOSPI and KOSDAQ-listed companies, eliminates exemptions for public institutions, small businesses, financial firms and electronic financial business operators, and newly includes entities required to hold ISMS certification. Small businesses will be covered only from January 1, 2029. Deputy Prime Minister and Science and ICT Minister Bae Kyung-hoon said the expansion should encourage more active information protection investment.

The same reporting cluster highlights security risks in AI tooling. ARTEX, a Chinese AI penetration-testing tool that had been released as open source and later taken private, was likely used in cyberattacks on about 80 Japanese organizations, according to analysis by a GMO Internet Group security subsidiary. In Korea, it was reportedly used in attacks that leaked about 100,000 records from 16 financial institutions, including Shinhan, KB Kookmin, Hana and Busan Bank. ThreatBook is reportedly set to relaunch the tool as a cloud-based paid service called RedAgent.ai.