Starbucks Korea, which specializes in coffee, recorded its biggest-ever performance last year. Its sales alone are close to 2 trillion won.

With the overall increase in coffee consumption, factors such as a hike in coffee prices and a hike in the minimum wage appear to have had little impact.

According to a report released by E-Mart on Feb. 13, Starbucks posted 1.86 trillion won in sales and 175.1 billion won in operating profit last year, up 22.8 percent and 22.6 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.

Net profit also came to 132.8 billion won during the same period, up 18.5 percent from the previous year. The number of stores also rose by 74 on-year to 1,336 over the cited period. Starbucks posted sales and operating profit of 519.1 billion won and 57.6 billion won in the fourth quarter of last year.

Meanwhile, Starbucks International and E-Mart each invested 50 percent in 1999 to establish Starbucks Korea and opened their first store in front of Ewha Womans University in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, on July 27.

Starbucks first broke through 100 stores in 2004, five years after it entered the market, and then surpassed 1,000 in 2016. Sales also surpassed 1 trillion won during the same period, drawing attention from the industry. The average number of customers per day amounts to 500,000.

Jung Jun-ho 다른기사 보기