Retail sales of pharmaceutical products in June surpass 2 trillion won for the first time in Korea

Monthly drug retail sales exceeded 2 trillion won for the first time in June, escaping negative growth for the first time this year.

According to Statistics Korea, monthly retail sales of pharmaceutical products in June rose 1.9% year-on-year to 2.025 trillion won.

Retail sales of pharmaceuticals continued to grow for 12 months last year but fell 2.9% in January, starting 2021 with negative growth.

It then expanded to -9.0% in February but rose to -2.1% in March and -0.4% in April, almost recovering from the same period last year.

In May, the growth has surpassed 2 trillion won by 1.9%, showing rapid recovery from its slump in the first quarter.

However, cumulative retail sales for five months amounted to 9.4275 trillion won, which is still 2.5% short compared to the same period last year.

The slump of outpatient prescriptions continued in April and May with negative growth.

The decline also increased from 0.3% in April to 1.1% in May. The monthly outpatient prescription amount has decreased by nearly 100 billion won in two months from 1.25 trillion won in March to 1.86 trillion won in April and 1.56 trillion won in May.

As a result, the cumulative amount of outpatient prescriptions for five months decreased by 2.4% YoY to 5.9121 trillion won, down from the 6 trillion won mark.

Pharmaceutical exports, which had been on the rise for a while, also failed to avoid the decline. The monthly export volume was still $626.27 million, far above the level before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the growth fell sharply due to the base effect of high growth for over a year.

The growth of pharmaceutical exports recorded negative growth in 21 months in May, while the growth plunged to 2.9% in April from over 50% in March.

Meanwhile, despite a sharp drop in exports in the second quarter, the cumulative exports for five months were $3.547.44 billion, which is still nearly 40% higher YoY.