Last year's franchise store count growth rate hit a five-year low. Sales and the number of workers also saw slower growth. In particular, the slowdown in the number of workers was more pronounced compared with store count and sales, which the Ministry of Data and Statistics (MODS) attributes to the expansion of unmanned payments.
According to the "2024 franchise statistics results (provisional)" released by the agency on Dec. 24, last year's nationwide number of franchise stores was 314,000. That was up 4.0% from a year earlier, but it was the lowest growth rate since 2020. From 2020 to 2023, the number of franchise stores increased about 5%–10% each year.
Sales showed the same pattern. Last year's franchise store sales totaled 117.8 trillion won. Although that was a 6.8% increase from a year earlier, the growth rate has retreated each year over the past three years. From 2022 to 2024, the sales growth rate was 18.5%→9.9%→6.8%. On this, an agency official said, "As the recovery in domestic demand was delayed last year, we assess that the growth in franchise-related indicators slowed."
Last year, the number of workers at franchise stores was 1,038,000, up just 2.2% from a year earlier. Compared with store count and sales rising 4%–6% over the same period, the slowdown was notable. An agency official said it was "the impact of the expansion of kiosks and unmanned stores." In fact, according to the agency's "2024 service industry survey results," the share of food and bars that introduced unmanned payments was 10.1%, up 1.5 percentage points (p) from 8.6% a year earlier.