Number of cafes in South Korea 2021, by franchise

Coffee shops are common in South Korea, and many of them belong to one franchise or another. The most common franchise was the domestic chain, Ediya Coffee, with over 2,800 coffee shops scattered across the country. Out of domestic franchises A Twosome Place coffee shops came in second, with around 1,200 cafes.

Franchise cafes in Korea

Franchise cafes were the most popular location for purchasing coffee for South Koreans in 2021. Starbucks made the most from its 1,300 cafes in 2018, earning approximately 1.5 trillion South Korean won. in sales revenue. Starbucks’ sales revenue was far greater than that of any other coffee franchise in Korea, and even the second-ranking Angel-in-us made around half as much. Ediya Coffee, despite having the most cafes, was in fourth place in terms of sales revenue and made around 200 billion won that year. Of the more than 18 thousand franchise coffee shops in Korea, over half were open 10-12 hours during the day, with a few thousand thousand being open even longer.

Coffee consumption in Korea

Over 2.5 million bags of coffee, each bag weighing 60 kilograms, were consumed in South Korea in 2020/2021. Coffee consumption has increased steadily over the past years and coffee has been one of the most popular drinks for Koreans, becoming the most frequently purchased non-alcoholic drink in 2016. On average, an adult aged 20 years and older consumed around 353 cups of coffee in 2018. This is almost one cup of coffee every day in that year. Indeed, a survey in 2018 showed that around 60 percent of respondents said they drank one or two cups of coffee every day, with 1.8 cups being the overall daily average.