The Korean 'wave' includes snacks like Choco Pies

Korean confectionary companies enjoyed brisk overseas sales in 2020 thanks to the popularity of Korean pop culture and food abroad, industry sources said Tuesday.

Overseas sales of industry giant Orion stood at approximately 1.5 trillion won ($1.34 billion) last year, accounting for 65.6 percent of its overall revenue.

Last year's figure was up from 1.3 trillion won in 2019, 1.2 trillion won in 2018 and 1.06 trillion won in 2017.

China was Orion's largest overseas market, with its sales in the world's most populous country reaching some 1.1 trillion won, passing the 1 trillion-won mark for the first time in three years.

China was followed by Vietnam with 292 billion won and Russia with 89 billion won.

Orion's bestselling product abroad was Choco Pie, a chocolate-covered marshmallow snack. Overseas sales of the product came to 381.4 billion won last year, up from 341.4 billion won.

Other major industry players, including Lotte Confectionery, Crown Confectionery and Haitai Confectionery & Foods, also chalked up resilient overseas sales.

Lotte saw its overseas sales of Choco Pie surge to 101 billion won in 2020 from 93 billion won a year earlier. The company runs four overseas Choco Pie plants -- two in India, one in Russia and one in Pakistan.

In addition, Lotte exported around 100 billion won worth of snacks last year, with overseas sales of its long-time bestseller Pepero alone amounting to 35 billion won. Pepero is a thin cookie stick with an outer layer of chocolate.

Crown's exports climbed 10 percent on-year to 22 billion won in 2020, and those of Haitai surged 20 percent to 40 billion won.

Korean snack firms' strong overseas sales came amid overseas interest in K-pop and other cultural properties.

Yonhap