Japanese beauty brand Shu Uemura has announced its intention to pull out of the South Korean market in September after 16 years in the country.

Some local media reports have attributed the L’Oréal Group-owned cosmetic brand’s exit at least partly to ongoing boycotts of Japanese products by Korean consumers since 2019, but in a statement, L’Oréal attributed the Korea exit to its “plan to maximise our brand portfolio. As a global company, [we] periodically review our brand portfolio based on demand from the local market.”

Shu Uemura currently has more than 70 points of sale in Korea.