Starbucks Korea has closed its stores at Gwangju and the MBC headquarters in Sangam-dong, Seoul. While some have interpreted this as a ripple effect of the "Tank Day" boycott movement, Starbucks cautioned against over-interpretation, stating that the closures were solely due to contract expirations.
According to industry sources on Friday, Starbucks Korea recently closed its "Gwangju Jisan Recreation Ground Entrance Store," located at the entrance of Mudeungsan National Park in Sansu-dong, Dong-gu, Gwangju.
It was a standalone two-story building store that opened in 2017. Additionally, the Sangam MBC Store, which was located on the first floor of MBC Mall Park, a commercial facility within the MBC headquarters in Sangam-dong, Seoul, also recently ceased operations.
Gwangju is a symbolic city of the May 18 Democratic Uprising, and local civil society had strongly reacted immediately after the Tank Day controversy.
According to Starbucks, the Gwangju Jisan Recreation Ground Entrance Store's contract expired last year, but it was a store where an agreement was reached to extend the operating period by one year.
The company explained that it closed after the promised time had passed and that this is unrelated to the Tank Day incident. In fact, Starbucks opened a new store in Gwangju last September.
Starbucks also explained that the Sangam MBC Store closure was solely due to contract expiration, and that they opened a new store 10 minutes away from the relevant location.
Meanwhile, according to E-Mart's second-quarter earnings report, SCK Company, the operator of Starbucks, had 2,185 stores as of the end of the second quarter, an increase of 49 stores compared to the first quarter (2,136 stores). The total number of stores increased by 70 in the first half of this year alone.
SCK Company's second-quarter revenue was 747.3 billion won, a decrease of 6.1% from the same period last year, and operating profit turned to a loss of 18.4 billion won.
The industry views that Starbucks' use of expressions such as "Tank Day" in its tumbler discount event on May 18 caused controversy and affected performance.
However, it is widely predicted that performance will recover as the number of customers and revenue increase simultaneously starting from the third quarter.
in LIVING
