Medicube is one of the most visible Korean skincare brands outside Korea right now. The Zero Pore Pad turns up in Amazon bestseller lists, the Collagen Night Wrapping Mask circulates on TikTok as an overnight “glass skin” trick, and AGE-R devices have become part of the brand’s international identity.
So, is Medicube popular in Korea, too?
Yes. But Medicube has become one of the more unusual cases in K-beauty. Its parent company now earns roughly 92% of its revenue outside Korea, while the Medicube products Korean shoppers rank highest are not necessarily the same ones that dominate international attention.
This post contains no affiliate links. Korean platform data was read on September 8, 2026, and the relevant ranking update dates are listed below.
The short answer
Medicube is a mainstream Korean brand, not an export-only label. It is sold through Olive Young, its toner-pad line has sold millions of units domestically, and Medicube products rank near the top of Korean consumer review platforms.
Three things are true at once:
- Medicube is genuinely sold and bought in Korea.
- Its parent company, APR (에이피알), is now overwhelmingly an overseas-driven business.
- The Medicube products ranked highest by Korean consumers are not identical to the products that receive the most attention abroad.
The rest of this post is the evidence for each.
The parent company now earns about 92% of its revenue outside Korea
Medicube is owned by APR Corp. (에이피알), a KOSPI-listed Korean company headquartered in Seoul. That matters because APR publishes financial results that give us a much clearer picture than social-media popularity can.
In its second-quarter 2026 earnings announcement on August 5, APR reported consolidated revenue of ₩767.5 billion and operating profit of ₩190.6 billion, both up roughly 134% year on year. Its operating margin was 24.8%.
First-half revenue reached ₩1,360.9 billion — already close to the company’s full-year 2025 revenue of ₩1,527.3 billion.
APR earnings release, August 5, 2026 (Korean)
The number that matters most for this question is the regional split.
APR said overseas revenue rose 178% year on year, exceeded ₩700 billion, and accounted for 92% of total revenue.
The quarterly regional breakdown published by APR was:
- North America: ₩376.3 billion (+264.6%)
- Europe: ₩145.1 billion (+380.3%)
- Asia: ₩121.1 billion (+14.5%)
- Other regions: ₩61.7 billion (+325%)
North America and Europe together increased from 40% of total revenue a year earlier to 68%. Europe was also reported as a separate region for the first time that quarter.
There is an important limitation, though.
The 92% figure is APR-wide, not Medicube-specific. APR owns multiple brands and does not publish a Korea-only revenue figure for Medicube by itself.
So the number tells us something important about APR’s overall business direction. It does not mean we can accurately say that “92% of Medicube sales happen overseas.”
APR has not published that number.
Koreans did buy the toner pads — roughly 4.7 million of them
There is an important counterweight to the export story, and it also comes from APR.
In April 2025, APR announced that Medicube’s toner-pad line had passed 10 million cumulative units sold worldwide by the end of March 2025.
The company said overseas sales accounted for about 5.3 million units.
Dealsite, April 29, 2025 (Korean)
If the worldwide total was close to the announced 10 million threshold, subtracting 5.3 million overseas units gives an estimated roughly 4.7 million units sold in Korea.
That is not a number APR published directly. It is an estimate derived from the figures in the announcement, so it should be treated as approximate.
Still, it shows that the toner-pad line had accumulated substantial domestic sales rather than becoming successful only after leaving Korea.
The same announcement traces the expansion of Medicube’s pad lineup:
- Super Cica Toner Pad — 2021
- Deep Vita C Pad — 2022
- Red Succinic Acid Pad — 2023
- Exosome Cica Pad — 2024
- PDRN Gel Pad — 2025
APR also reported that the Zero Pore Pad reached No. 1 in daily sales in Amazon US’s toner category in April 2024.
For a broader comparison of what actually ranks in Korea’s toner-pad category, see Best Korean Toner Pads? What Korea’s Rankings Actually Show.
What Medicube products Korean shoppers actually rank highest
This is where the Korean picture starts looking different from the English-language one.
Glowpick (글로우픽) is a Korean consumer review platform. Its brand pages can be sorted by 글로우픽 랭킹 순, a platform ranking that is not simply the same thing as sorting by average star rating.
On Medicube’s brand page, the top ten were:
- PDRN Pink Peptide Ampoule (피디알엔 핑크 펩타이드 앰플) — 4.31, 698 reviews, 30ml / ₩31,400
- PDRN Pink Collagen Jelly Mist Serum — 4.25, 57 reviews, 100ml / ₩39,800
- Collagen Night Wrapping Mask (콜라겐 나이트 랩핑 마스크) — 4.29, 114 reviews, 75ml / ₩37,900
- Zero Pore Pad 2.0 (제로 모공 패드 2.0) — 4.02, 619 reviews, 70 sheets / ₩34,000
- AGE-R Booster Pro X2 — 4.50, 16 reviews, ₩545,000
- PDRN Pink Collagen Capsule Cream — 4.32, 42 reviews, 55g / ₩47,600
- Zero Pore One Day Peptide Serum — 3.96, 24 reviews, 30ml / ₩30,200
- AGE-R Booster Pro Mini — 4.32, 76 reviews, ₩218,000
- PDRN Pink Collagen Toning Gel Toner Pad — 4.12, 49 reviews, 70 sheets / ₩35,000
- PDRN Pink Hyaluronic Moisture Cream — 4.34, 25 reviews, 50ml / ₩37,000
Glowpick Medicube brand ranking (Korean)
A note on dates is important here.
When I read the page on September 8, 2026, Glowpick displayed a September 7, 2026 update date for the ranking order.
The ranking positions had not changed, but some review counts and average ratings had. For example, the PDRN ampoule gained a review, while the capsule cream and toning pad each moved by 0.01 in average rating.
In other words, the platform’s ranking update date and the date on which the visible review data is read are not necessarily the same thing.
Ranking positions refresh on Glowpick’s schedule. Review counts and averages can continue moving in between.
Two findings stand out.
The PDRN Pink line dominates the top of Medicube’s Korean ranking.
Five of the top ten products listed above belong to the PDRN Pink line. Based on this snapshot, PDRN is much more central to Medicube’s current Korean ranking profile than you might guess from international social media.
If PDRN is unfamiliar, I covered what it is and what Korean regulation actually allows brands to claim in PDRN in Korean Skincare.
The two internationally famous products are not ranked first.
The Zero Pore Pad 2.0 sits fourth on the Glowpick brand ranking, with a 4.02 average across 619 reviews.
The Collagen Night Wrapping Mask sits third.
Neither result suggests those products are unpopular in Korea. In fact, their relatively large review counts show substantial consumer activity.
But if you assumed Medicube’s biggest international products would automatically occupy the top two positions in Korea, this ranking does not support that assumption.
The mask that ranks first doesn’t have the best score
The Collagen Night Wrapping Mask is also a useful example of why ranking position and star rating are not interchangeable.
On Glowpick’s face mask → peel-off pack (필오프팩) category, the top three were:
- Medicube Collagen Night Wrapping Mask — 4.29, 114 reviews, 75ml / ₩37,900
- Medipeel Red Lacto Collagen Wrapping Mask — 4.34, 541 reviews, 70ml / ₩28,000
- Medipeel Extra Super 9 Plus Wrapping Mask — 4.26, 208 reviews, 4ml × 4 / ₩3,000
Glowpick peel-off pack ranking (Korean)
The ranking order carried a September 6, 2026 update stamp when I read it on September 8.
Notice what happens here.
Medicube ranks first despite having a lower average rating than the No. 2 product and only around one fifth as many reviews.
Further down the same ranking, Sulwhasoo’s 옥용팩 was twelfth with 907 reviews.
Glowpick does not publicly provide enough information to reconstruct the weighting behind its 글로우픽 랭킹 순 ranking, so there is no reason to invent an explanation.
What we can say from the visible data is simpler:
The ranking is not sorted purely by average rating, and it is not sorted purely by review count.
That is why a Korean “No. 1” badge should always be read together with the platform, category and ranking method behind it.
Separately, APR announced in April 2026 that the Collagen Night Wrapping Mask had passed 10 million cumulative units sold globally in the four years since its February 2022 launch.
More than 3 million of those units were sold in the United States.
During Amazon’s Big Spring Sale in March 2026, the mask ranked second in beauty overall, behind Medicube’s own Zero Pore Pad at No. 1.
Cosin Korea, April 23, 2026 (Korean)
So the same product can be highly ranked on a Korean review platform and an Amazon bestseller at the same time — but those rankings measure completely different things.
The Olive Young listing is a bundle, not a single product
Medicube also has a dedicated brand store on Olive Young (Korean).
But there is another ranking problem worth watching.
When I checked Olive Young’s ranking page in early September 2026, the Medicube entry that surfaced was a promotional pad listing rather than a standard single product.
Its Korean title was:
[1등모공패드/대용량160매] 메디큐브 패드 3종 1+1 140매 리필 기획 (제로모공패드/PDRN겔패드/딥비타씨패드)
In other words, this was a 1+1 promotional/refill listing covering multiple Medicube pad options, including the Zero Pore Pad, PDRN Gel Pad and Deep Vita C Pad.
It was not simply the standard ₩34,000, 70-sheet Zero Pore Pad tub.
This distinction matters because Olive Young rankings measure listings, and a listing may contain a bundle, refill promotion or multiple selectable variants.
I discussed the same issue in Olive Young Best Sellers: What the Korean Ranking Actually Measures.
A ranking comparison can therefore become misleading if one brand is represented by a promotional bundle while another is represented by a single bottle or jar.
There is also one limitation to this part of the analysis.
Olive Young’s site restricts automated access, so I could confirm the listing and its wording on the live ranking page but could not reliably archive an exact rank position.
I am therefore not assigning it a ranking number I could not verify.
For the sale structure behind these promotional listings, see the Olive Young Sale Guide.
In Korea, Medicube is also a device brand
Medicube’s Korean presence is not limited to skincare.
Five of the top fifteen entries on the Glowpick Medicube brand ranking belong to AGE-R (에이지알), and four are beauty devices:
- AGE-R Booster Pro X2 — ₩545,000 (5th)
- AGE-R Booster Pro Mini — ₩218,000 (8th)
- AGE-R Glutathione Glow Ampoule — ₩58,000 (12th)
- AGE-R Booster Glow — ₩378,000 (13th)
- AGE-R UltraTune 40.68 — ₩698,000 (14th)
A ₩545,000 home beauty device appearing fifth on a brand ranking dominated otherwise by skincare is notable.
It means Medicube’s Korean brand identity includes both topical skincare and home beauty devices rather than operating as a skincare-only label.
Korean reviews also frequently discuss skincare products in connection with AGE-R device use, especially Booster-series products.
The AGE-R Glutathione Glow Ampoule is another example of Medicube’s ingredient-led naming strategy. I covered what glutathione can and cannot be claimed to do under Korean cosmetic rules in Glutathione in Korean Skincare.
There is also some broader retail context.
CJ Olive Young’s 2025 Awards, announced November 28, 2025, were based on 180 million purchase records collected from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025 across 40 categories and 166 products.
Medicube AGE-R was among eight brands involved in collaboration products connected to the awards period.
CJ newsroom, November 28, 2025 (Korean)
I could not verify a specific Medicube category win from that announcement, so I am not claiming one.
What this means if you are buying Medicube outside Korea
You are not buying a brand that exists only for overseas K-beauty shoppers.
Medicube has a real Korean retail and consumer-review presence. Its toner pads accumulated millions of estimated domestic sales, its products rank highly on Glowpick, and the brand is sold through Olive Young.
But APR’s business is now overwhelmingly international.
The 92% overseas-revenue figure applies to APR as a whole rather than Medicube alone, but it shows how important global markets have become to the company.
That makes it increasingly important not to treat “popular internationally” and “ranked highest in Korea” as the same question.
If you want to know what currently stands out in Medicube’s Korean rankings, look at the PDRN Pink line.
The PDRN Pink Peptide Ampoule was the No. 1 Medicube product on the Glowpick brand ranking snapshot used for this article — not the Zero Pore Pad.
And do not assume the Korean list price is automatically the cheapest price.
Korean beauty retail relies heavily on bundles, refills and sale periods. I broke down those mechanics in Is K-Beauty Actually Cheaper in Korea?.
If you are checking other K-beauty brands that receive heavy international attention, I have done the same analysis for Anua, COSRX, and BIOHEAL BOH.
Frequently asked questions
Is Medicube a Korean brand?
Yes. Medicube is a brand operated by APR Corp. (에이피알), a Seoul-based Korean company listed on the KOSPI.
Which Medicube product is most popular in Korea?
It depends on what you mean by “most popular.”
On Glowpick’s Medicube brand ranking read on September 8, 2026, the PDRN Pink Peptide Ampoule ranked first. It had a 4.31 average across 698 reviews and was listed at ₩31,400 for 30ml.
The Zero Pore Pad 2.0 ranked fourth on the same list.
This is a Glowpick ranking result, not a claim that the ampoule is Korea’s highest-selling Medicube product across all retailers.
Do Koreans actually use the Zero Pore Pad?
Yes.
APR reported that Medicube’s toner-pad line passed 10 million cumulative units worldwide by the end of March 2025, with about 5.3 million sold overseas.
If the worldwide figure was close to the announced 10 million threshold, that implies roughly 4.7 million domestic units across the toner-pad line.
Is the Collagen Night Wrapping Mask popular in Korea or just abroad?
Both.
It ranked first in Glowpick’s peel-off pack category in the September 6, 2026 ranking update.
APR also reported that the product had passed 10 million cumulative global units by April 2026, including more than 3 million in the United States.
Is Medicube sold in Olive Young?
Yes. Medicube has a dedicated brand store on Olive Young.
However, Medicube listings appearing in Olive Young rankings may be promotional bundles or multi-option refill listings rather than standard single products, so ranking positions need to be interpreted at the listing level.
Sources and snapshot dates
- APR Q2 2026 earnings release, August 5, 2026 — revenue, operating profit, regional breakdown and 92% overseas revenue share. Source (Korean)
- APR toner-pad milestone announcement, April 29, 2025 — 10 million cumulative units as of the end of March 2025, about 5.3 million overseas, and Amazon US toner-category performance. Source (Korean)
- APR Collagen Night Wrapping Mask announcement, April 23, 2026 — 10 million cumulative units, more than 3 million US units and Amazon Big Spring Sale ranking. Source (Korean)
- Glowpick Medicube brand ranking (글로우픽 랭킹 순) — ranking order stamped September 7, 2026; visible figures read September 8, 2026. Source (Korean)
- Glowpick peel-off pack (필오프팩) category ranking — ranking order stamped September 6, 2026; visible figures read September 8, 2026. Source (Korean)
- Olive Young Medicube brand store and ranking page — checked September 8, 2026. Source (Korean)
- CJ Olive Young 2025 Awards announcement, November 28, 2025 — awards methodology and participating brands. Source (Korean)
Korean platform rankings are not stable from week to week. Everything above should be read as a dated snapshot.
Where a number was derived rather than published directly — most notably the approximate 4.7 million domestic toner-pad estimate — I have identified it as an estimate rather than presenting it as a company-reported figure.