Nine K-beauty brands reach eight or more shelves. 171 reach exactly one.

"K-beauty is everywhere" is true for a handful of brands and no one else. This week the most widely stocked name on our board is Anua, appearing on 13 of the 18 retail channels we track. Behind it: medicube (12), Dr. Althea (11), and then ROUND LAB and celimax tied at 10.

That's the whole top of the mountain. Of our 248 brands, only nine reach eight channels or more. The other end of the distribution is where almost everyone lives: 171 brands — 69% — appear on exactly one channel. Reach, at the top, is rare.

Breadth is the moat, not presence

Getting onto a shelf is common; getting onto many is not. The brands at the top of this list have done the harder thing — cleared the buying process at prestige, specialist and marketplace channels that each curate differently. Anua on 13 channels isn't 13 lucky placements; it's a brand that reads as safe to a dozen different buyers. That breadth is the real asset, and it is far scarcer than the "available in the US" headline suggests.

Reach is not the same as rank

A brand can reach many channels and still sit mid-pack on each — which is why Retail Reach ranks breadth first, then breaks ties on a brand's average best rank per channel. Anua leads on both counts this week. But the two can diverge: a brand deep on one shelf and absent elsewhere tells a different story than one shallow across many. We publish the channel count and the ranks side by side so the distinction stays visible.

The limits, stated first

"Reaches a channel" means the brand appears in that channel's weekly top-ranking sample — not that it is missing from any retailer's full catalogue. Sample depth varies from top-20 to top-195, so channel count is a reach signal, not comparable shelf size. And distribution moves: this is the W30 board, and reach at the edges shifts week to week.