Just as the bird that flies the highest sees the farthest, a company must take a broad view in order to go farther and faster ahead of its competitors. July has seen Amorepacific Group sweeping the global market with passion and unwavering spirit, making remarkable achievements through new innovations and its own competitive edge. In this season of sizzling sun, we have turned much of our long-cherished dreams into reality and gained a foothold to go even higher. In the history of Amorepacific Group, July is always full of stories, green, vivid and as bright as the summer sun.

 57 years ago, the founder Suh Sungwhan (pen name Jangwon) set off on his first tour of inspection upon the invitation of French Coty. It was only 10 years after the Korean War and by then, an overseas trip was theprerogative of just a chosen few. But it was his responsibility as a beauty company CEO to go on the tour of inspection to Europe, the first in the history of his own and the Korean beauty industry.

 With the responsibility on his shoulders, he started on a long journey. Because there were no direct flights, he went via Japan and Hong Kong and arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on July 12. The next day, he visited Coty and was impressed by its automated plant covering an area of 33,057m2. While looking at the scale and facilities of the world's leading beauty company, he promised himself that one day he would build a plant equipped with more advanced facilities in Korea. After his visit to Coty, he went to the Council of Paris at the invitation of the vice president and there, he was honored with honorary citizenship of Paris on Bastille Day. It once again showed the presence of the beauty industry in France and reminded him of his responsibility and role as an entrepreneur.

 He then toured around Grasse, the city of perfume in Southern France and moved to Hamburg, Germany and visited Givaudan, the world's leading perfume maker headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and came back to Korea. During his trip, he found different colors of water, soil and smell of air across each country and this experience helped him set a new direction for himself as an entrepreneur making our people beautiful with what's found in our land.

 The first 40-day overseas tour of inspection in the Korean beauty industry was a great asset earned through experience and served as a foothold for Amorepacific Group to grow into a Great Company.

 In 2003, oil prices rose with the outbreak of the Iraq War with the aftermath of the global economic crisis sweeping across Korea as well. The Korean beauty market suffered from the increased price of materials and ingredients and parallel imports. Customers turned to hypermarkets, home shopping and online channels, seeking more reasonable price ranges while some of those not caring about the price at all moved to department stores and door-to-door sales channels, and as a result, the retail market sank into a slough of stagnation. In the mid-1990s, the retail channel took over half of the beauty market but by 2003, it dropped to 29%.

 Meanwhile, low-priced one-brand shops grabbed their chance and aggressively opened franchises one after another. In such a state of confusion in the market, Amorepacific sought ways to differentiate itself from low-priced brand shops and provide customer-focused services together with high quality products. The answer was HUE Place. In July 2004, the first HUE Place opened in Bongcheon-dong, Seoul. More test zones were set up in shopping areas popular with young customers to make products more accessible and available. While in the residential areas with the large number of housewives, more scientific, personalized counseling services were provided using a skin tester called Skin Log.

 Customers came to HUE Place for the friendly service, reliable brand, reasonable price, professional counseling and beauty experience, and though the cosmetics brand shop market was red ocean, HUE Place earned dozens of new customers every day. So, with experience and know-how through HUE Place, Amorepacific opened ARITAUM for more effective operation of its retail brand shop.

 Amorepacific decided to introduce a unique original designer perfume targeting the French perfume market. Amorepacific made its debut in the French Market with the opening of its local branch office in Chartres in August 1990 and then in December 1995, another office PPL (Parfums Lolita Lempicka) was organized to take sole charge of perfume. After that, Lolita Lempicka was released, a perfume creating an image of an innocent yet voluptuous woman through a blend of thousands of fragrances. This feminine fragrance created a sensation when unisex perfume was all the rage at that time. In 1999, the market share was merely 1.4% but it continued to increase every year and after five years, it had doubled its share (2.8%), taking the 4th spot in the French perfume market.

 Then on July 27, 2006, Amorepacific Group CEO Suh Kyungbae received the highest French mark of order, Legion d'Honneur at the French Embassy in Korea in recognition of Amorepacific Group's contribution to the development of economic ties and friendship between Korea and France through the success of its first perfume, Lolita Lempicka and the release of the second perfume, L. Indeed, experience in France was a good stepping stone for Amorepacific Group going forward toward the world across Europe, Asia and the Americas.