Simmons' "Mattress Cooling Pad" (left) and "All-Season Cooling Set" (right) [Simmons]
Simmons' "Mattress Cooling Pad" (left) and "All-Season Cooling Set" (right) [Simmons]

Simmons cooling set sales up 175%, Ace cooling products up 161.1%

Ohouse searches for cooling comforter sets surge 249%; Casamia also logs sharp sales gains

Hotter, more humid summer forecast drives competition across bedding, mattresses and sleep mats

With forecasters warning of a record-breaking summer, South Korea's bed and bedding industry has launched a full-scale "cooling war." Consumers are responding quickly, and companies that have rolled out cooling products are already seeing rapid sales growth. This year, furniture and home appliance makers have joined the fray, competing on "sleep temperature" as their primary selling point.

Online lifestyle platform Ohouse analyzed search data over three weeks in May and found that searches for "cooling comforter sets" jumped 249 percent compared with April. Searches for "cooling pads" rose 234 percent and "cooling blankets" 220 percent. Beyond bedding, searches for "cool mats" — used on living room or bare floors — climbed 153 percent from the previous month.

In the mattress segment, Simmons has posted some of the sharpest gains. Sales of its "All-Season Cooling Set" rose 175 percent in the third week of May compared with the second week. Its "Mattress Cooling Pad" more than doubled week-on-week in the second week of April. Both products feature a reversible design combining cooling fabric on one side and cotton on the other, letting users flip them based on the season and indoor temperature.

Ace Bed has also seen cooling bedding sales climb. The company said sales of its cooling products rose 161.1 percent in the third week of May from the previous week. Last year's sales data for its flagship "Microcare Cooling Pad" showed that super-single sizes accounted for 44.4 percent of units sold, outpacing king-size and larger at 27.4 percent. The company attributed the trend to a growing single-person household population and the spread of twin-bed arrangements — two single beds placed side by side — driving demand for personalized cooling.

The product competition is also a materials competition. Ace Bed's Microcare Cooling Pad uses Kolon's cooling yarn "Forpe," which the company says lowers skin temperature by about 6.3 degrees Celsius on contact. Its "Cooling Body Pillow," a long bolster-style product, posted a 71.7 percent increase in sales from January through April compared with the same period last year.

The metric the bedding industry most commonly uses to describe cooling performance is Q-max. Q-max measures contact-cooling performance — specifically, how quickly heat transfers from the skin to a fabric cooler than body temperature at the moment of contact. The higher the value, the more pronounced the initial cooling sensation.

Furniture companies are also expanding their bedding lineups. Shinsegae Casa's Casamia brand launched its "Chamonix" cooling bedding series in early April and has recorded weekly sales growth of more than 50 percent since, with the most recent week showing a 180 percent increase over the prior week. The company also introduced its "Sierra" series, which uses a high-performance contact-cooling material called "Duralon-Cool." The product range now extends from mattress pads, pillow pads and body pillows to sofa pads and seat cushions.

Hyundai Livart took a different approach, leading with temperature-regulating materials rather than cooling fabrics. Orders for its "Ensleep Liberta Mattress" and "Ensleep Estelstar Mattress" — both incorporating German Saxony wool — rose more than 20 percent this month compared with last month. Saxony wool maintains a stable temperature, absorbs moisture up to 30 percent of the fiber's weight without feeling wet, and then evaporates that moisture, improving sleep comfort in humid conditions.

Home appliance companies have also entered the "cool bedroom" race. Kyungdong Navien launched its 2026 "Navien Sleep Mat Four Seasons" product. The mat supports both cool and warm modes, and some models include left-right split temperature control and an AI sleep mode. In summer, the strategy targets tropical-night demand by regulating the mat's temperature directly, rather than relying solely on the contact-cooling properties of bedding.

"Summer bedding used to be something consumers bought in a rush when it got hot, but now they compare Q-max values, materials and how well the product holds up after washing," an industry official said. "For mattress makers, it has become a seasonal market where cooling and sleep-related products can raise the average transaction value even during periods when core mattress sales slow down."


hong@heraldcorp.com