It can be said with confidence that half of the adult population of Ukraine uses the services of the beauty industry. According to Comcon-Pharma, 41% of Ukrainians can afford to visit beauty salons once every two to three months. Every one person out of three can attend it at least monthly. In addition, if earlier visiting beauty salons and aesthetic surgery clinics was a woman's prerogative, now the demand for such services among men has significantly grown — their share in the total number of clients has reached almost 30%.
The rapid development of aesthetic surgery in Ukraine began to be observed in the early 2000s. Over the five years, from 2006 to 2011, the number of surgeries increased by 20%, to 12 thousand.
In many ways, the business has become popular due to its profitability. Plastic surgeries brought doctors up to 100% profit, and the cost of opening a clinic could be recouped in just a year.
Over the past 15 years, the number of plastic surgery clinics in Ukraine has grown 10 times — currently, there are more than 100 of them in the country, of which about 15 are major players, including Virtus, Aesthetic Surgery, Medical Club, Beauty Institute Aquarelle, the Sherri medical center, etc. In total, there are 800-900 plastic surgeons in Ukraine who perform about 10-12 thousand operations annually, the cost of which is 30% lower than abroad. The annual cash volume of this market is estimated at $20 million.
According to the Ministry of Health, more than 30 thousand licensed specialists are officially employed in the cosmetic services market.
However, in fact, there are many more of them, since everyone can take cosmetologist courses, obtain a respective professional certificate and open their own private office. Such private offices laid the foundation for the development of cosmetology in Ukraine. Following them, beauty salons and aesthetic beauty clinics began to develop. As a result, before the crisis (in 2010-2012), the demand for body and face care services was satisfied by 98%, and the market volume reached almost $41 million, showing annual growth of at least 20%.
Today, plastic surgery is a private business, since there are no state centers working in this direction. The market is active and continues to develop, and although there are serious players in the industry, the demand and the growth figures insinuate that it would gladly welcome a new one.
