Visitors choose goods at an unmanned Emart24 convenience store in Seoul on Sept. 23, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Oct. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s franchise industry showed a clear sign of polarization by business type last year, a corporate tracker said Wednesday.
CEO Score analyzed the change in the number of franchise stores and the financial performance of franchise headquarters over the past three years for the nation’s 233 major franchise operators.
The analysis showed that the number of franchise stores for top-ranking franchise operators stood at 105,837 last year, up 4.5 percent or 4,559 from the figure reported in 2019.
By business type, convenience store franchises came on top in terms of the number of new stores. The number of new franchise convenience stores that opened last year totaled 2,878.
Following convenience store franchise were fried chicken restaurants at 1,929, education businesses at 1,777, other businesses in the service industry at 1,520, and coffee shops and bars at 1,190.
The coffee and beverage sector recorded the highest new store opening rate at 21.8 percent last year, followed by bars at 15.3 percent, entertainment establishments at 15.1 percent, fried chicken restaurants at 14.8 percent, convenience stores at 13.6 percent and Korean food restaurants at 12.8 percent.
In contrast, the cosmetics business marked the highest store closure rate of 25.7 percent, followed by education businesses at 13.8 percent, optometrists at 13.5 percent, foreign food restaurants at 11.4 percent, and bars at 10.5 percent.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
