韩国便利店今年恢复净开店并转向优质商圈扩张

South Korea's convenience store operators are opening new outlets again this year after shutting down large numbers of low-margin stores last year. The push to weed out underperforming outlets is largely complete, and consumer demand has recovered. As a result, competition for prime locations that generate strong sales is heating up once more.
GS25 operated 18,021 stores as of the first half of this year, up from the end of last year and back to net growth, industry sources said on the 2nd. The chain's store count had fallen to 18,005 at the end of last year from 18,112 at the end of 2024, a decline of 107 outlets and its first annual drop. New openings resumed this year and store expansion has continued into the second half, so the net increase is expected to hold for some time. CU, the only one of the four major chains to add stores last year, also expanded further this year.
Operators that carried out sweeping restructuring last year are pulling out of decline as well. Seven-Eleven's store count dropped by more than 1,100 to 11,040 at the end of last year from 12,152 at the end of 2024, as it concentrated on closing outlets with overlapping trade areas and weak profitability following its acquisition of Ministop. This year, however, its store count has started rising again.
Emart24 lost 620 stores, falling to 5,510 at the end of last year from 6,130 at the end of 2024, but the decline narrowed to just 17 in the first half of this year. Compared with last year, its store efficiency drive has effectively entered its final stage. The four chains operated a combined 53,266 stores at the end of last year, the first year-on-year decline on record, but the total rose to 53,458 in July this year, an increase of about 200 from the end of last year, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
The industry views last year's decline in store numbers less as a sign that market growth has stalled than as the result of each operator reorganizing its network to improve profitability. Rather than maintaining store counts at any cost, the chains focused on closing outlets that contributed little to revenue and profit. With that slimming-down largely finished and business conditions improving this year, the environment for opening new stores is taking shape again, analysts said.
Convenience store sales have also rebounded clearly this year. Sales at the four chains fell 1.0% year-on-year in the first quarter of last year and 0.9% in the second quarter, two straight quarters of decline, but turned positive with gains of 2.5% in the first quarter and 4.8% in the second quarter of this year, according to the ministry. Both the number of visits and the amount spent per visit increased. Total transactions were still down from a year earlier as recently as January but turned higher from February. The average purchase amount has run 1% to 3% above the same month a year earlier every month this year.
Another factor supporting the recovery is that convenience stores are drawing grocery shopping that once went to hypermarkets and supermarkets, moving beyond their traditional business in cigarettes, beverages and processed foods. CU's sales of grocery items rose 18.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of this year, outpacing the 12.8% increase in the first quarter. GS25 saw sales of grocery products such as vegetables, meat and fruit climb 30.9% year-on-year in the first half. Meat sales jumped 45.4% and vegetables 43.9%, as fresh food, once a marginal category for convenience stores, sells at a rapidly growing pace.
Unlike in the past, however, the expansion race is no longer simply about adding store numbers. Each operator is focusing on securing top-tier locations that can deliver stable sales, such as districts with newly occupied apartment complexes or busy commercial areas with heavy foot traffic. The emphasis is shifting toward opening strategies that put the profitability of individual stores ahead of the store count itself.
An industry official said convenience store product lineups have broadened from cigarettes and processed foods to fresh food, ready meals and desserts, drawing in shoppers who had used other retail channels. With the closing of low-margin stores largely completed last year, the official added, competition is intensifying again this year to secure strong outlets in key commercial districts where grocery demand is high.