Chinese beauty brands flock to Southeast Asia as their first step in going global

Their first stop? Southeast Asia. Joy Group, the parent company behind C-beauty brands Judydoll and Joocyee, will open a store in Malaysia by the end of the year, after debuting its first overseas boutiques in Singapore last year. “Southeast Asia has a huge consumer market, and people are generally very accepting of Chinese products,” Fanqi Kong, Joy Group’s general manager of international business, tells Fortune. Joy Group opened its Singapore office in 2024, which it designated as a regional hub to tap other Southeast Asian markets. In 2025, the group’s retail sales exceeded $730 million, of which $87 million came from overseas sales. Vietnam is now Joy Group’s top overseas market. Joy is part of a broader push by Chinese consumer brands to go global, a decision so common it’s even spawned a business buzzword, chuhai. Brutal competition at home has pushed Chinese brands like BYD, Geely, Huawei and Xiaomi to venture into overseas markets. Chinese companies initially focused on Western markets like the U.S. and Europe in their global push. But many are now pivoting to Southeast Asia, where Chinese brands have found greater success, due to geographical proximity, cultural similarities, and generally young populations. Between 2019 and 2024, Chinese color cosmetics and skincare brands in Southeast Asia reported compound annual growth rates of 70% and 115% respectively, according to data analytics firm Euromonitor. “There was a perception among Chinese businesses that exporting their products to the most established markets is the best way to promote their brand,” says Dianna Chang, an associate professor at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS). “But now, they’re finding a lot of relevance in Southeast Asia—it’s closer to home and encompasses many emerging economies with young populations.” How Chinese brands got ahead