Singapore is lagging most other countries when it comes to growth in the Asian beauty industry.

According to research from Euromonitor International, Markets of the Future: ASEAN in 2020, the surprising leaders are Indonesia and Vietnam – significantly outperform the most obvious contenders, Korea and China.

Singapore is well down the list, just ahead of the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan, as can be seen on the chart below.

Vietnam’s beauty and personal care market experienced healthy value growth in 2015. With the developing of the Internet network and online retailing, more consumers from rural areas can buy products more easily, and it also strongly boosts retail value sales of beauty and personal care due to changing consumer behavior. On the other hand, thanks to dynamic marketing activities by leading manufacturers and media, consumers are aware of the importance of using branded products from reliable sources after many scandals of cosmetics containing toxic ingredients.

Vietnamese and Indonesians are willing to spend more on all types of beauty and personal care, instead of using unbranded goods, in order to protect their health.In October 2015, the draft TPP trade pact was signed, which means Indonesia and Vietnam are set to open up to other nations by removing barriers and decreasing tariffs by up to 100 per cent. As a result, it will open significant change in beauty and personal care over the forecast period such as lower pricing and more international companies entering the two markets.

Countries across Asia were ranked by Euromonitor by actual and forecast growth between 2008 and 2018, as the chart shows.

The data was revealed by UBM Asia, organiser of Vietbeauty 2016 at Ho Chi Minh City in August, which will showcase products from more than 150 exhibitors from Japan, Korea, Australia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan, Mainland China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, Singapore, the US and Europe.