[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] The distribution IT company TheMamma, which operates local food material mart shopping apps 'MammaMeokja' and 'MaZa', announced on the 1st that its cumulative sales this year exceeded 100 billion KRW as of early last month.
This means that in just 10 months, it generated about 55% more sales than last year's annual sales. Considering the sales expected to occur next month, the annual sales for this year are projected to more than double compared to last year. TheMamma was established at the end of 2016 and recorded sales of 1.1 billion KRW in 2018. Sales increased 16-fold to 18.4 billion KRW in 2019, and last year reached 66.2 billion KRW.
The reason TheMamma was able to achieve 100 billion KRW in sales in less than a year is due to securing stable sales from offline directly managed stores while increasing transaction amounts with O2O app franchise stores such as MammaMeokja and MaZa, and commercializing retail tech items like electronic shelf labels (ESL). They also actively revitalized business-to-business (B2B) transactions, systematizing the overall profit structure.
The ESL developed in-house by TheMamma was recently applied at the directly managed Mamma Mart Cheonan branch. This ESL solution reflects product information entered into the point-of-sale (POS) system in real time onto the tags. It is the first in Korea to include a store product location matching function. Compared to paper price tags, it reduces physical resources and labor costs, making it an item that aligns with the recent trend of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) management.
App sales and ESL-related revenue are expected to increase more actively going forward. Recently, TheMamma signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Korea Mart Association (Chairman Kim Seongmin), which has over 60,000 small and medium marts nationwide, to promote ESL and MaZa app-related businesses.
Through this agreement, TheMamma will exclusively supply the ESL solution to Korea Mart Association member companies while securing over 60,000 members as potential franchise stores. The Mart Association will actively encourage its members to apply TheMamma's ESL solution and sign franchise contracts for the MaZa app.
In addition, TheMamma is pursuing business expansion in various directions, so it is expected to show a more remarkable sales growth trend after next year. Previously, TheMamma promised strategic collaboration and mutual growth with Ssispace24, which operates the convenience store 'Ssispace24', Jeju Black Label, a Jeju Island food and beverage specialized distribution company, and Guri Cheonggwa, a wholesale corporation specializing in fresh produce.
A representative of TheMamma said, "All these agreements were made in the second half of the year," adding, "Next year, when the synergy effects are expected to be in full swing, sales are expected to grow at a much faster rate than this year."
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