Musinsa Reports 331.9 Billion KRW in Sales Last Year, 51% Growth Year-on-Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Musinsa announced on the 14th that it achieved sales of 331.9 billion KRW last year, a 51% increase compared to the previous year.

Musinsa explained that the increase in new members and the growth in sales of partner brands led to the rise in performance. Starting with last year's 'Da Musinsarang Hae' TV campaign, aggressive marketing activities such as Black Friday and Outer Festival increased the revisit rate, which was analyzed to have contributed to the sales growth.

The sales performance of Musinsa Standard, a private brand operated by Musinsa, also played a part in the sales increase. As of the end of March this year, the number of brands partnered with Musinsa exceeded 6,000, and the number of members increased by more than 40% from 2019 to 2020, currently totaling 8.4 million.

Operating profit recorded 45.5 billion KRW, a 7% decrease from the previous year, due to large-scale hiring in 2020, expanded investment for new service launches, and advertising and marketing activities for partner brands. Musinsa recruited a large number of professionals across development, sales, and marketing last year, increasing its workforce by more than 48% compared to the previous year. Additionally, it started new businesses such as the limited edition market Soldout and fashion-specialized MCN Original Lab, and invested funds to build infrastructure to support the global expansion of partner brands in Europe and Japan.

This year, Musinsa plans to strengthen support activities to maximize partner brand sales with a transaction amount target of 1.7 trillion KRW. It intends to expand the outdoor advertising support rate up to 40% annually for small and medium brands with annual sales under 5 billion KRW in three areas within Seoul. It will also collaborate with nine domestic companies conducting celebrity and influencer marketing to sponsor partner brand products at Musinsa's expense.

Musinsa will continue to expand the scale of support funds for the 'Win-Win Growth Project,' which lends production funds interest-free for the next season so that small and medium fashion brands can focus stably on production and marketing. Including the 7 billion KRW supported for the spring and summer seasons this year, it plans to support 20 billion KRW annually. The cumulative support amount to date is 46.8 billion KRW.

Jomanho, CEO of Musinsa, said, "We proactively invested in talent acquisition last year and effectively conducted TV advertising campaigns in the fashion market, which was stagnant due to COVID-19, resulting in sales growth." He added, "The scale Musinsa currently holds in the domestic fashion market is still small, so we will strive to grow further this year," and stated plans to "especially strengthen support for partner brands and focus on improvement work to secure flexibility for expanding new categories and platform functions."