Jinyoung Expands Its Share of the Global Finishing Materials Market

Championing the Eco-Friendly Material ‘ASA’, With a Public Offering for a KOSDAQ Listing in April

Proprietary Brand ‘DecoJin’ Developed From Raw Materials With Superior Environmental Metrics

Jinyoung (CEO Shim Young-soo), a specialist in next-generation eco-friendly finishing materials, is moving forward with an initial public offering (IPO). Having obtained preliminary listing review approval from the Korea Exchange on February 23, Jinyoung plans to conduct a public offering for a KOSDAQ listing in April.

Founded in 1993 as Jinyoung Plastics and incorporated in 1996, Jinyoung has established itself, through collaboration with global companies, as one of Korea’s leading specialists in furniture and interior finishing materials. In particular, at the center of Jinyoung’s recent growth is a new eco-friendly raw material, ASA (Acrylate-Styrene-Acrylonitrile).

ASA, used as the raw material for Jinyoung’s core products, is a thermosetting resin—a high-performance plastic with excellent weather resistance. Compared with ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene), which is widely used for furniture edging, the interior and exterior parts of home appliances, building materials, and more, ASA offers superior impact resistance, chemical resistance, and moldability, and undergoes little change in physical properties or appearance, making it suitable even for outdoor use.

Leveraging its surface finishing technology based on eco-friendly ASA material, Jinyoung is concentrating on research and development to apply the material beyond the furniture and interior markets to automotive exterior parts, premium home appliances, building materials, and more. In particular, because ASA has been proven harmless to the human body by the U.S. FDA and international certification bodies, Jinyoung’s products have also received Environmental Labeling certification from the Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute.

Having developed Deco-Sheet, an eco-friendly surface finishing material made using ASA, Jinyoung is increasing its market share by championing its own brand, ‘DecoJin’, primarily in domestic and overseas furniture markets. In 2021, Jinyoung posted sales of approximately 59.2 billion won and an operating profit of 7 billion won. Of this, sheet overlay products for furniture, which use ASA as their main raw material, accounted for about 78% of sales, and thanks to strong demand in global markets, exports accounted for a striking 51%.

Jinyoung’s strategy is to pursue aggressive sales in a market currently led by PET (Poly Ethylene Terephthalate), championing the eco-friendliness of ASA material. PET replaced the toxicity of PVC, the conventional finishing material feedstock, but because ASA offers strong weather resistance that keeps colors from fading even over long periods, as well as excellent heat resistance that withstands high temperatures, demand for ASA is expected to surge and displace the market.

Shim Young-soo, CEO of Jinyoung, said, “Eco-friendliness is a very central keyword for the growth of any company and for the organic connection of society, and it is emphasized in Jinyoung’s management philosophy,” adding, “Using the KOSDAQ listing as an opportunity, we will grow together with our customers by showcasing our outstanding finishing-material technology to raise customer satisfaction and meet market demand.”