South Korea's Consumer Packaged Goods Market Proves Trying For Global Manufacturers

Korean consumers' fast-changing tastes and preferences are causing multinational manufacturers of consumer packaged goods to struggle against local competitors. For example, Nestlé entered South Korea's coffee mix market in the 1980s with its Taster's Choice brand of instant coffee; the Swiss conglomerate held on to the number 2 spot for 30 years, but fell to third place in January 2012. Procter & Gamble, for its part, used to hold 50 percent of the sanitary napkin market in 1995, courtesy of its Whisper brand. It lost the number 1 ranking to local rival Yuhan Kimberly's White brand, and sank further to number 3 in 2010.