11 april 2025
Rebranding gone wrong? Innisfree faces profit plunge and consumer backlash
Once a household name in Korean beauty, Innisfree is now facing a steep decline. While other first-generation Korean cosmetics brands have been showing signs of recovery following the recent global K-beauty craze, Amorepacific’s natural beauty brand Innisfree continues to struggle with lacklustre financial results.
Declining sales and profits
In 2024, the brand reported sales of 224.6 billion KRW (approximately 173 million USD), a drop of 17.97% from the previous year, and an operating profit of only 1.6 billion KRW (approximately 1.2 million USD), marking a huge 84.15% drop year-on-year.
Innisfree’s performance began to decline in 2020, largely due to the brand’s inability to keep pace with evolving beauty trends that emerged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Operating profit for that year dropped by 89% to 7 billion KRW (approximately 5.3 million USD), and by 2021, Innisfree recorded an operating loss of 1 billion KRW (approximately 769,000 USD).
A controversial rebranding
To counter this downward trend, in 2023 Amorepacific decided to make Innisfree go under a major rebranding, moving away from its classic naturalistic aesthetic inspired by the pristine landscapes of Korea’s Jeju Island, to a new, virtual concept dubbed “The New Isle“. However, the move has been widely criticised in South Korea, with many loyal customers arguing that the new brand image lacked the distinctive charm that previously set Innisfree apart in the saturated domestic market.
As such, industry experts are beginning to raise doubts about Innisfree’s ability to recover from its current situation, questioning whether Amorepacific’s continued support is like “pouring money into a sinking ship”.
Innisfree is now planning to double down on international expansion in an effort to reclaim its place in the spotlight.