Bodyfriend, a South Korean health care company specializing in building premium automated massage chairs, has retaken the No. 1 spot as the country’s leading massage chair maker.

The company was ranked as the top player in the segment locally in terms of market share, brand preference and brand awareness for 2015, by local market analyst Hankook Research on Wednesday.

Bodyfriend took up 66.1 percent of Korea’s total massage chair industry, according to the research firm’s survey of 500 local consumers who owned massage chairs between Dec. 23 and Feb. 16.

HuTech, another local massage chair-maker, came in second with a market share of 9.1 percent followed by LG Electronics at 4.8 percent.

Bodyfriend’s consumer satisfaction level rose 8.6 percentage points to stand at 73.8 percent in 2015 compared to the previous year. Its brand preference reached 63 percent, up by 22.2 percentage points from 2014.

“We were able to retain our market leadership as the only local brand possessing both excellent product design and technology,” said a Bodyfriend official.

Meanwhile, Bodyfriend is set on exporting its products in the years ahead, including to China and the United States, with aims to overtake Singapore’s Osim, the top massage chair-maker in the world.

“Bodyfriend is currently the No. 2 massage chair-maker in the world as a company conducting only local sales. Once we begin exporting, we believe we can become the top company in the segment by 2017 or 2018.”

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)