Leading the “On-Tact” Business and Growing Globally

COVID-19 signaled the beginning of the year without warning and swept the world throughout 2020, causing a significant change.

The change brought about by the coronavirus is not the direction but the speed. The non-face-to-face trend that quickly spread to the point of putting the retail industry in such panic was a trend to come anyway, and the pandemic only dramatically accelerated it.
In the time of chaos, Atomy’s “Better Safe Than Sorry” motto shone brighter than ever. As offline seminars could not be held due to social distancing, Atomy switched to online seminars as if it were waiting for that eventuality and introduced augmented reality and extended reality.

Its global expansion also continued, including China, Colombia, India, and Hong Kong. In the meantime, Atomy has completed the Atomy Orot food cluster to target the HMR market, the next cash cow. Furthermore, the technology to ensure Absolute Quality and Absolute Price has become even better.

Here are the top 10 news stories that excited all Atomians around the world.

1. Global expansion – China, Colombia, Hong Kong, and India
Atomy’s greatest news of 2020 is the opening of Atomy China. It started its membership registration on April 1 and announced its official launch of operations on July 10. From then to September 30, only 80 days after its official launch, Atomy China recorded 4 million members and 120 billion KRW in sales, making history in Atomy's global expansion. Atomy's overseas expansion arrived in South America and India despite the global economic downturn due to COVID-19.

Following China, Atomy Colombia opened on October 16 and Atomy Hong Kong on October 27. On November 11, Atomy entered the Indian market with a population of about 1.4 billion. Colombia, with a population of 50 million, is the third-largest market in Latin America.

It can serve as a bridgehead to a huge market of 200 million people as a member of the economic blocks in the region such as the Andean Community and the Pacific Alliance. India has a population of 1.38 billion with an annual economic growth rate of nearly 7%. The number of people aged between 15 to 59 who will lead consumption is growing rapidly, and the middle class is expanding significantly. All these factors make India an attractive market.

Hong Kong is a market to look forward to. It is Asia's financial center and international business center.

There is also a growing share of independent retailers in the retail industry.

2. Online Success Academy
COVID-19 swept throughout the world in just a few months and caused a global pandemic. And the world quickly entered a non-face-to-face era.

The distancing trend was foreseen with the wave of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Nan-do Kim, professor of Seoul National University, said that COVID-19 was not changing the direction of the future but rather speeding it up.
Atomy has shown how direct selling should proceed in the non-face-to-face era, which seems contrary to direct sales.

Last August, the first online Success Academy held in the Dream Hall of Atomy Park announced the start of “On-Tact” direct selling in the non-contact era.

The first online Success Academy, which was broadcast in real-time through YouTube, was enough to create a major sensation in the domestic industry, including a large LED screen with hundreds of zoom meeting participants and 9,000 concurrent viewers.

In October, a virtual reality video introducing a new product, Synergy Ampoule Program, with Chairman Han-Gill Park starring, chroma key shooting, made 12,000 concurrent viewers cheer.Atomy’s online Success Academy is a barometer that shows its current status as the leader in On-Tact direct selling and an engine that pushes the direct seller to keep challenging without succumbing to adversity.

3. Completion of Atomy Orot Food Cluster
Last March, Atomy Orot was completed. Built in an industrial complex of rural area in Bomul-ri, Jeongan-myeon, Gongju-si, Chungcheongnam-do, Atomy Orot sits on land with an area of 34,927㎡, which is about five times the size of a soccer field (7,140㎡), with three stories above-ground, one basement, and a total floor area of 17,559㎡. It consists of two main buildings, the main building in which research, development, and manufacturing lines are included, and the auxiliary building in which restaurants and the auditorium are included. This food cluster is to provide all the solutions Atomy needs when it comes to food.
Atomy Orot will select companies with specialized technology but struggle due to our inability to develop a market while agreeing with and sharing the corporate cultures of Atomy: observing principles, growing together, and sharing. Then it will take them inside the food cluster and incubate their research and development capability and then manufacture the products in-house or sell through original equipment manufacturing (OEM). No artificial seasoning, but only natural ingredients are used to achieve a healthy flavor. Atomy’s food lead aims to offer tasty and healthy food options and secure competitiveness through continuous research and development. Atomy Orot plans to establish a food safety verification system that globalizes K-FOOD by developing products tailored to consumers' lifestyles and developing new health food ingredients.
Chi-Bong Kim, CEO of Atomy Orot, emphasized, "Atomy Orot is not just a food company, but is the birthplace of developing Atomy's future foods by comprehensively managing the process of researching, developing, and manufacturing numerous products."

4. Ranked 11th in the Global Direct Sales Corporate Ranking
Atomy was ranked 20th in the 2019 DSN Global 100 list, the first Korean company to enter this list, compiled by a US-based direct-selling magazine, Direct Selling News (DSN). In June 2020 issue, Atomy jumped up nine places to rank 11th. DSN has published The “DSN Global 100 List” every year since 2009.

It aggregates sales submitted by international direct sales companies and announces the rankings up to the 100th.
In 2020, Atomy ranked 9th among the Top 10 Highest Growth Percent list with a growth rate of 13.9%. However, when narrowed down to companies with sales over $1 billion, it recorded the second-highest growth rate. The company was also ranked 3rd among the Top $100 Million Growth Club with a $160 million increase in sales.
What is encouraging is that Atomy newly opened four global offices in 2020: China, Colombia, Hong Kong, and India. Atomy China, which started operations in July, is expected to generate sales of 250 billion KRW in 2020, and Atomy's overseas sales in 2020 were expected to grow more than 70% year-on-year to more than 800 billion KRW. Since the company is growing despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, is expecting to see a single-digit ranking in the DSN Global 100 list to be released next year.

5. Atomy's Donations Continues
"Even COVID-19 has not stopped Atomy’s donations. On July 8, Atomy delivered a support fund for constructing a public children's rehabilitation center at Jeonju Jesus Hospital at Atomy Park.

A total of 2.7 billion KRW was donated for the children with disabilities, following the Life-Cherishing Mom Fund in 2019.
There is no rehabilitation center for children, although the Korean government has been making efforts to build them because the need is high.

Daejeon will initiate the series of construction of the public children's rehabilitation centers nationwide. Atomy will support building one of them in Jeonju, and it will have four floors above ground and a basement level. Chairman Han-Gill Park said, ""Nothing can be more powerful in lifting the spirits of the families of the children with disabilities than seeing their children who could eat alone are able to eat by themselves, and children who could hold their head up are able to hold it up by themselves."""
On August 4, he donated 435.7 million KRW to Save the Children, asking them to use the fund to support juveniles whose protection programs have ended and children victims of sexual crimes. This delivery ceremony was held through an online video conference. The project to support youth without protection consists of two phases: self-reliance program, such as education for strengthening their household financial capacity, and support for self-reliance reserves by giving monthly allowance up to 50,000 KRW each month through 1:1 matching sponsorship. And through the support project for children victims of sexual crimes, the plan is to provide sanitary pads for one year to 840 female adolescent victims of sexual crimes, thereby helping to guarantee health rights.

6.Awarded the Jang Young-Shil Award, Certified as a Green Product, Received Taiwan’s National Brand YUSHAN Award

What made Atomy shine even more in 2020 was the recognition of the technological advances in an effort to achieve Absolute Quality. Atomy's flagship product, Absolute CellActive Skincare, won the IR52 Jang Young-Shil Award, showing why Atomy's products are of absolute quality. The technology used in the Absolute Line is a ‘cell targeting’ technology that quickly finds damaged skin cells and treats them with active ingredients needed for each skin concern. It acquired a patent from the Korean Intellectual Property Office, applied for an international patent via Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system and a patent in China. Its excellent skin-improving effects played a decisive role in raising annual sales of over 100 billion KRW.
Following the Absolute Line’s special delivery technology, Atomy’s best-seller, HemoHIM, obtained a patent for the composite for recovery from fatigue or enhancing exercise performance, and became a certified Green Product. Green Product certification is an eco-friendly certification presented by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs for technologies and products that efficiently use and save energy resources through carbon and energy reduction. HemoHIM demonstrated Atomy’s potential to become a next-generation eco-friendly company by achieving a Green Product certification, using technology that lowers the amount of carbon generation while improving the efficiency of the manufacturing process for the individually approved ingredient, ‘HemoHim Mixed Extract including Angelica Gigas.’ In addition, Atomy Taiwan’s PTFE Membrane mask was awarded the Grand Prize in the National Brand YUSHAN Award, presenting Atomy's leading technology.

7. Global 15 Million-Member era
The number of registered Atomy members has exceeded 10 million. Atomy, which started with 58,000 registered members in 2009, surpassed 100,000 registered members by recording 190,000 registered members (Atomy Korea) in 2010. Since then, the membership size has nearly doubled annually.

In 2013, the number of members exceeded 1 million, 1.45 million, recording the largest number of registered members among domestic companies in the industry. As of the end of 2019, there are over 3.6 million registered members in Korea.
The global membership started with the Atomy USA in 2010. The USA office opened with approximately 17,000 registered members, and in ten years, the number increased to about 260,000 in 2019.

The growth in overseas members was even more exponential. In the beginning, Global Atomy had only the US members of 17,000 in 2010, but the global membership increased to 150,000 in 2013, exceeding 1 million. The number of overseas members was 2.5 million in 2019 and started to surpass 3.6 million, the membership size of Atomy Korea, in 2020. This was made possible by expanding into two countries with the world's largest population, China and India, in the same year. With about 4.5 million members in China and 2.5 million members in India added to the existing 2.5 million members, Atomy now has more than 10 million overseas members. By the end of 2020, Atomy expects to have more than 15 million members globally.

8. 10th Anniversary of Atomy USA
Atomy USA, the first runner of Global Atomy, celebrated its 10th anniversary. At the Success Academy held in August celebrating the 10th anniversary of the opening, Hyung-Woo Yu, head of the USA office, remarked, "Over the past decade, we have built a solid foundation in the US market by creating a customer base and establishing the Success System. The next decade will show Atomy USA taking off the runway and flying high into the sky."
Atomy recorded sales of 4.9 billion KRW in its first year in the USA, which was considered a barren land from a Korean standpoint, although it is the birthplace and the world's largest market of direct sales.

And in 2019, 10 years later, it recorded sales of 61.3 billion KRW, which increased more than 12 times.

Since the start, the average annual growth rate for the past nine years has reached 32.22%, with over 260,000 registered members. In 2020, Atomy USA grew by 33.84% compared to the same period of the previous year and continued to race forward to reach 100 billion KRW in the world’s most competitive market, even in the global pandemic.

9. Received Brand Tower Award with Accumulated Exports of $600 Million
Atomy’s accumulated exports have surpassed $600 million. Starting from just $3.22 million in 2010, Atomy’s exports grew exponentially every year, finally surpassing $10 million in 2013. From that point onward, exports exceeded $50 million in 2016 and $100 million in 2019. Finally, by September 2020, Atomy recorded $180 million in exports, and its accumulated exports reached $630 million (approximately 720 billion KRW). Starting with the $5 million Export Tower Award in 2011, Atomy continued to win this award with $30 million in 2016, $50 million in 2017, and $70 million in 2018.

Atomy also won the Export Tower Award in 2019 with exports exceeding $100 million, demonstrating its status as an export force.
Based on the fiscal year, the company’s exports have exceeded $200 million in 2020. At the Trade Day Awards ceremony in 2020, Atomy received the Brand Tower Award and was recognized as a brand that spreads K-Beauty and K-Health and promotes the excellence of Korean goods around the world with competitive products such as Atomy HemoHIM and Absolute CellActive Skincare. The Brand Tower Award selects from companies with $10 million or more in exports of consumer products, such as cosmetics, fashion clothing, baby products, pharmaceutical products (medical devices), agricultural food products, in the year it is being awarded.

10. Chairman Han-Gill Park was selected as one of 10 influential figures by industry in China
Chairman Han-Gill Park was selected as one of 10 influential figures by industry in China.
In October, Chairman Han-Gill Park was named one of the “Top 10 Influential Individuals by Business Category in China” at the 2020 China Corporate Credit Forum and 6th China Influence Brand High-End Summit Forum held in Beijing, China. Atomy China won the “Credit China·TOP 10 Honest Brands in the Industry Award” as well. The 2020 China Corporate Credit Forum was jointly hosted by Economy, a magazine issued by Economic Daily under the State Council of China, and Journalistic Front, a magazine published by People's Daily, as well as the Credit Work Commission of China Small and Medium-sized Business Association, the Business Development Research Lab of China Management Science Research Institute. It was overseen by around 300 high-ranking officials, including the National People's Congress, National Committee For the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, and State Council.
When most companies stopped production activities due to COVID-19, Atomy China was the first company to resume production and business management activities in Shandong. The Chinese office officially started its business in July and accelerated its business, leading to great results and contributing to the regional economy. These awards show that Atomy China has received good reviews for its overall activities.
Furthermore, Atomy China was selected as an Innovative Company for E-commerce Platforms in Cross-border Trade at the 16th Award Ceremony of the New Economy Summit Forum in 2020, held in Chongqing, China, on November 26. It was recognized for its outstanding achievements among other Chinese direct and e-commerce platform companies.

Editor _ YoungMin Lee