A recent study of 17 East Asian branded café markets, including South Korea, China, and Japan revealed the region’s vast and opportune coffee shop market growth by 3,630 outlets over the last 12 months to reach 74,535 stores, representing 5.1% growth. The three largest markets, South Korea, China, and Japan, achieved outlet growth of 8.3%, 2.9%, and 2.3% respectively. Boasting a remarkable 482 branded cafés per million inhabitants, South Korea’s 24,905-outlet branded café market is East Asia’s largest and most developed. While industry leaders surveyed reported a 20-30% sales decline due to the pandemic, South Korea’s densely populated and domestic chain-led market achieved impressive outlet growth over the last year. Despite the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, 59% of Chinese operators surveyed reported positive sales growth over the last 12 months. A further 67% of industry leaders surveyed believe current trading conditions are positive. With formidable global brands, such as Starbucks, McCafé, and Costa Coffee, as well as a fast-growing domestic segment competition looks set to become fierce in 2021 and 2022 paralleled with escalated coffee imports and consumption. With our strategic positioning across the East Asian Market including in China Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and South Korea we are committed to capitalizing on opportunities for Sinopia Coffee.
