Korea Coffee Brand Revenue Tiers 2026 — Starbucks at ₩3.2 Trillion, Then a 5x Cliff

Counting coffee-shop signs on a Korean street is a losing game — there are simply too many. But line those same brands up by what their companies are actually worth, and a familiar street starts to tell a very different story. With the 2025 audited results all in, here are Korea’s coffee franchises sorted into six tiers by head-office revenue.

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How are the tiers decided?

Head-office (operating company) revenue for fiscal 2025. I used the audited reports filed with Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (DART) and the press coverage around them. This isn’t a ranking of brand recognition or store count — it’s strictly about how much the company behind each brand earned in a year.

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S tier — over ₩3 trillion, occupied by Starbucks alone

Starbucks Korea crossed the ₩3 trillion mark for the second straight year, following ₩3.101 trillion in 2024. Yet operating profit actually fell 9%. Selling and administrative expenses climbed 8.9% to ₩1.5639 trillion — costs growing twice as fast as the 4.5% revenue gain.

It wears an American name, but the ownership is nearly Korean. In 2021, E-mart (now part of the Shinsegae Group) bought an additional 17.5% stake from the US parent to reach 67.5%, with Singapore’s GIC holding the remaining 32.5%. The legal name also changed around then, from Starbucks Coffee Korea to SCK Company.

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A tier — ₩500–700 billion, where budget coffee climbed the ladder

This is the bracket that has shifted most in Korea’s coffee market over the past three years.

Mega MGC Coffee opened its first store in Hongdae in 2015 and built a business on ₩2,000 americanos. In 2025 it booked ₩646.9 billion in revenue and ₩111.4 billion in operating profit. That’s a 17% operating margin — more than three times Starbucks’ (5%). In December 2025, the operator renamed itself from Ann House to MGC Global.

A Twosome Place plays the exact opposite hand. It runs fewer than half as many stores as Mega but bets on cakes, desserts, and wide seating. The result: average revenue of ₩571.73 million per franchise store, the highest in the coffee industry. The whole company is owned by the global private-equity firm Carlyle Group.

📊 Same A tier, opposite playbooks (2025 results; store counts from the Fair Trade Commission, April 2026)

	Mega MGC Coffee	A Twosome Place
Head-office revenue	₩646.9 billion	₩582.4 billion
Operating profit	₩111.4 billion	₩36.3 billion
Franchise stores	3,325	1,510
Avg. revenue per store	outside the top ranks	₩571.73 million (no. 1)
Americano price	₩2,000	around ₩4,500
Store style	small takeout	large sit-down

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B tier — ₩200–360 billion, the busiest bracket

🥈 B-tier brands (2025 results)

Brand	Operator	2025 revenue	Note
Paik’s Coffee	The Born Korea	₩361.2 billion (group total, -22.2%)	Group swung to a ₩23.7 billion operating loss
Compose Coffee	Compose Coffee	₩300.3 billion (+236%)	₩39.9 billion operating profit; the Philippines’ Jollibee owns 100%
Ediya Coffee	Ediya	₩238.7 billion	₩9.6 billion operating profit; 2,562 franchise stores
Paul Bassett	M’z Seed	₩206 billion (company-wide, +7.5%)	Maeil Dairies affiliate; Paul Bassett brand alone ~₩160 billion

Two of these numbers need explaining.

Why Compose Coffee’s revenue jumped 3.4x in one year isn’t because it sold 3.4 times more coffee. A change in how goods reach franchisees meant a larger share of that flow now gets booked as revenue — a largely accounting shift. Operating profit actually fell 6.9% to ₩39.9 billion, and the margin dropped from 48% in 2024 to 13.3% in 2025. When revenue soars but profit falls, this is usually why.

Paik’s Coffee’s ₩361.2 billion isn’t Paik’s alone. Its operator, The Born Korea, runs 20-plus brands including Hong Kong Banjeom and Hanshin Pocha, and doesn’t break out results by brand. The Born Korea’s 2025 revenue fell 22.2% and it swung to a ₩23.7 billion operating loss — how much of that belongs to Paik’s Coffee is impossible to tell from outside.

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C, D, and E tiers — names you know, numbers that aren't that big

🥉 C tier and below (2025 results or latest filings)

Tier	Revenue range	Brands
C	₩100–200 billion	Coffee Bean (₩143.5 billion) · Hollys · Pascucci · The Venti
D	₩40–90 billion	Mammoth Coffee (₩84.9 billion) · Angel-in-us · Tom N Toms · A’bout Coffee
E	₩10–40 billion	Selektor Coffee · Amasvin · Gamsung Coffee · Yoger Presso · Caffe Bene · Droptop · Cafe Mamas

This is where brands that used to be number one have gathered.

Coffee Bean was Starbucks’ only real rival until the early 2010s. Its 2025 revenue of ₩143.5 billion is 4.4% of Starbucks’. Caffe Bene once passed Starbucks in domestic store count — around 900 in 2012 — and now sits in the E tier. Angel-in-us once ran as many as 998 stores; that count has shrunk to about a third.

Hollys had an odd 2025: its revenue was recorded as literally “₩0” on the books, an optical illusion from a reverse merger with parent Crown F&B. The brand hasn’t disappeared.

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So is Starbucks really five times bigger?

No. This is the single most important trap in this chart.

Starbucks is company-owned, so the ₩4,700 a customer pays is all corporate revenue. Mega Coffee is franchised, so the ₩2,000 its customer pays is the franchisee’s revenue and never enters head-office revenue. What the head office earns is the beans, cups, and syrup that franchisee bought to make that coffee.

To compare the two properly you’d need system-wide sales — total sales across all stores including franchisees — and Korea doesn’t disclose that by brand. But you can reverse-engineer it from the Fair Trade Commission’s average-per-store figures.

🧮 Working backward with A Twosome Place (FTC 2025 franchise report)

Step	Amount
Franchise stores	1,510
Avg. annual revenue per store	₩571.73 million
Est. total franchisee revenue	about ₩863.3 billion
Disclosed head-office revenue	₩582.4 billion

Even A Twosome Place, whose head-office revenue is relatively high, sees customers spend 1.5x more than the head office books. Brands like Mega and Compose, with far more franchisees relative to head-office revenue, show an even bigger multiple. In other words, if you re-ranked by the money actually changing hands in stores, the gap would narrow from fivefold to two- or threefold.

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Which tier should a foreign traveler choose?

On a price list it’s ₩4,700 versus ₩2,000, but what you’re actually buying isn’t coffee — it’s a seat and time.

🎯 Which tier for which situation

Situation	Recommended tier	Why
Drop your bags and rest for an hour	S·A (Starbucks, A Twosome Place)	guaranteed seats, restrooms, outlets, free Wi-Fi
Caffeine on the go	A·B budget (Mega, Compose, Paik’s)	around ₩2,000, generous size, everywhere
Lattes and desserts	Paul Bassett, A Twosome Place	strong dairy and dessert lines
Quiet laptop work	Starbucks, Ediya	slower seat turnover, less self-conscious
Local-vibe café	independent cafés outside the tiers	Yeonnam, Seongsu, Ikseon-dong

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Where does this ranking go from here?

Three currents stand out.

First, private equity now owns budget coffee. Both Mega Coffee and Compose Coffee are controlled by private-equity or overseas capital (Compose is 100% owned by the Philippines’ Jollibee group). With an eye on returning investor money, store openings themselves become a head-office revenue stream, which is why store counts grow fast. It’s also why store numbers and franchisee profitability drift apart.

Second, the first generation is crumbling. Coffee Bean, Hollys, Angel-in-us, and Tom N Toms have all shrunk from their early-2010s peaks. Budget brands and independent roasteries split the spoils.

Third, even Starbucks isn’t safe. Operating profit fell 9% in 2025, and its margin is about half the pandemic-era level (10% in 2021). It can’t raise coffee prices, while rent and labor keep climbing.