Customers waiting in a long queue in front of U.S. coffee brand Blue Bottle Coffee’s second store in South Korea on July 5, 2019. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jul. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — Blue Bottle Coffee Inc. said on Tuesday that it will increase the number of its outlets in South Korea to four this year as it seeks to tap deeper into one of the world’s most competitive coffee markets.
The California-based coffee company advanced to Korea in May by opening its first store in Seongsu, eastern Seoul. It opened a second shop in Samcheong, central Seoul, last week.
South Korea has been a proven market for global coffee brands such as Starbucks.
The Seattle-based coffee company now operates 1,290 stores in Korea and earned 1.5 trillion won (US$1.3 billion) in 2018, up 20 percent from a year earlier.
Blue Bottle Coffee currently runs 62 outlets in the United States and 14 in Japan. Korea has become the third country that has the U.S. coffee brand’s stores.
(Yonhap)
