Convenience store chain CU is signaling a "store expansion" strategy again this year after last year, closely chasing GS25, the industry's No. 1 by revenue. CU briefly overtook GS25 in revenue in the second quarter last year, raising the possibility of a reversal, but its annual revenue still falls short of GS25.
However, the revenue gap between the two companies has steadily narrowed in recent years. The industry is watching to see whether CU can catch up with GS25 this year.
According to the convenience store industry on the 22nd, CU, operated by BGF Retail, has set a goal of a net increase of 300 stores this year. To that end, it plans to open about 1,300 new stores annually and close around 1,000 inefficient stores.
CU also maintained its expansion stance last year with a net increase of more than 250 stores. As of the end of last year, CU had 18,711 stores. Over the past three years, the net increase in stores totaled 1,924, including 975 in 2023, 696 in 2024, and 253 in 2025.
GS25 did not disclose its store count last year, but it was tallied at 18,112 stores as of the end of 2024. The industry estimates GS25 either maintained its store count last year or reduced it slightly.
Chief Executive Officer Hur Suh-hong, who has led GS Retail since March last year, has emphasized "sound management" since taking office. Accordingly, GS25 also appears to prioritize improving per-store profitability and building stable profit resilience over top-line growth.
So far, CU has led in store count, but GS25 has maintained an advantage in revenue. GS Retail posted 8.9396 trillion won in revenue and 186.1 billion won in operating profit in its convenience store business last year. Revenue rose 3.2% from a year earlier, while operating profit fell 4.4%.
BGF Retail has not yet disclosed separate results for its convenience store business, but its consolidated revenue last year was 9.0612 trillion won, up 4.2% from a year earlier. Considering that the convenience store business typically accounts for about 98% of BGF Retail's total revenue, CU's revenue last year is estimated at around 8.88 trillion won.
The revenue gap between the two companies narrowed from 114 billion won in 2023 to 74 billion won in 2024. It is estimated to have shrunk to about 60 billion won last year.
In the second quarter last year, CU briefly surpassed GS25 in revenue, drawing industry attention. CU's released revenue at the time was 2.2383 trillion won, 12.6 billion won more than GS25's 2.2257 trillion won. It was the first time since BGF Retail's listing in 2014 that CU's revenue exceeded GS25's.
Recently, the two companies' strategies have shown clear differences. GS25 is focusing on a "scrap and build (Scrap&Build)" strategy as a key pillar, renovating stores whose performance has stagnated for more than a year and reopening in areas with strong commercial competitiveness. In fact, GS25's same-store (stores operating for at least one full year after opening) revenue growth rate steadily improved last year, to 0.9% in the first quarter, 0.1% in the second quarter, 4.4% in the third quarter, and 3.6% in the fourth quarter.
CU is also renovating existing stores, but it is putting more weight on opening new mid- to large-sized high-quality stores. CU's same-store revenue growth last year was -2.1% in the first quarter, -2.1% in the second quarter, -0.4% in the third quarter, and 0.4% in the fourth quarter, weaker than GS25. However, the average daily revenue of new stores CU opened last year rose 6.4% compared with new stores in 2024.
The domestic convenience store industry is widely viewed as having entered a saturated phase. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources, the four major convenience store chains (CU, GS25, Seven-Eleven, E-MART24) posted an average revenue growth rate of 0.1% last year. Even so, GS25 and CU, which each have close to 20,000 nationwide stores, are showing steady revenue growth by leveraging brand and logistics competitiveness.
An industry official said, "In the past, as the number of stores increased, revenue tended to rise proportionally, but with the market entering a saturated stage as it is now, there are limits to simple expansion," and added, "In the end, the outcome will hinge on how many competitive stores they can open in better locations and how they scale up store size to improve revenue efficiency."