South Korean coffee market competition

The South Korean coffee market is experiencing shifts in payment volume among major brands. In August 2026, Mega MGC Coffee significantly narrowed its gap with Starbucks, with its estimated monthly payment volume reaching 94.9% of Starbucks’ total. This represented a reduction in the gap from 30.5 percentage points the previous year to just 5.1 percentage points. While Starbucks maintained a lead in mobile app engagement with 7.14 million monthly active users, Mega MGC Coffee reached a record high of 3 million users.

By August 2026, Starbucks also began narrowing the gap with the market leader, Twosome Place, in terms of estimated credit and debit card payments. Starbucks’ estimated payments rose to 116.12 billion won, reducing the margin with Twosome Place from approximately 7 billion won in July to 1.9 billion won in August. However, analysts noted that Starbucks’ year-on-year figures remained 15.9% lower than the previous year, and that credit card-based estimates may not fully capture total revenue due to the brand’s heavy reliance on prepaid cards and mobile vouchers.