Shilla Duty Free’s focus on profitability has sharpened.

[Updated] South Korea’s Shilla Duty Free says it will continue to focus on profitability recovery in the current quarter, “in response to changes in the travel retail market”.  

This follows a sales jump of +10.5% in the fourth quarter of 2025, when losses were more than halved in its home market.

Based on data from parent company, Hotel Shilla, the travel retailer’s double-digit sales hike led to revenue of KRW854.9bn/$593.2m* in the final quarter of 2025, while losses narrowed to KRW20.6bn/$14.3m from KRW43.9bn/$30.5m year-on-year (YoY).

CNY travel data signals a positive Q1 for Shilla

In South Korea, the fourth quarter figures showed that Shilla Duty Free’s downtown revenue increased by +8.7% YoY, but was outpaced by airport revenue as it surged by +11.8% YoY. In the current quarter, which includes Chinese New Year, Shilla hopes to benefit from boosted Chinese travel plans to South Korea.

Full year results show positive trends in both sales and profits since 2024.

According to Dragon Tail International, South Korea is the second most in-demand market for CNY outbound travel after Thailand, followed by Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. By world frequency searches, South Korea tops the list for the most-mentioned outbound countries. Also positive is that China’s international flights to South Korea for the period 2 February to 13 March are almost back to 2019 capacities.

On an annual basis, the trend for the past three years shows that Shilla Duty Free’s revenue growth has moderated from +11.9% in 2024 to +3% last year. More importantly to the company, the trend in operating profit last year has moved in the right direction: a profit of KRW22.4bn in 2023 flipped to a big loss of KRW69.7bn in 2024, but that loss narrowed to KRW47.3bn last year.

* FX conversions at today’s rate.

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