A Starbucks store logo in central Seoul. [Herald DB]
A Starbucks store logo in central Seoul. [Herald DB]

The number of Starbucks app users, which had dropped following a marketing controversy in May, rebounded last month, climbing by more than 700,000.

WiseApp·Retail, a retail analytics service, surveyed monthly active users for major cafe brand mobile apps and released the results Wednesday. Starbucks recorded about 7.144 million app users in July — up 731,000, or 11.4 percent, from about 6.413 million in June.

Starbucks app users had fallen roughly 15 percent from about 7.548 million in May to about 6.413 million in June following the "Tank Day" marketing controversy, before recovering to about 7.144 million in July. However, the July figure remains 5.4 percent below the pre-controversy level in May and is down 6.8 percent from a year earlier.

Meanwhile, budget coffee franchise Mega MGC Coffee posted a record high of about 3 million app users last month, up 7 percent from the same month a year ago — the second-highest total among the brands surveyed. It was followed by Compose Coffee (about 1.42 million), Twosome Place (about 1.4 million), Paik's Coffee (840,000) and Ediya Coffee (590,000).

Starbucks also led all cafe brands in estimated credit and debit card spending last month, followed by Mega MGC Coffee, Twosome Place, Compose Coffee, Ediya Coffee and Paik's Coffee. Notably, Mega MGC Coffee's estimated spending reached 94.9 percent of Starbucks' total — up 25.4 percentage points from 69.5 percent in the same month last year.

The survey was based on a sample of Korean Android and iOS smartphone users. Estimated payment figures were derived from a sample of Korean credit and debit card transactions and do not include bank transfers, cash payments or transactions processed through partner platforms. As a result, the figures may differ from individual companies' actual sales, WiseApp·Retail said.


korean@heraldcorp.com