BBQ, 362.4 Billion KRW in Sales Last Year... 13.3% Increase from Previous Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon] Genesis BBQ announced on the 14th that its sales last year reached 362.4 billion KRW, a 13% increase compared to the previous year. During the same period, operating profit rose by 14.5% to 60.8 billion KRW.

The operating profit margin (operating profit relative to sales) was approximately 16.8%, up 0.2 percentage points from the same period.

In the global business sector, sales at stores amounted to 117.8 billion KRW, more than doubling (101%) from the previous year (58.5 billion KRW). BBQ explained that this was thanks to increased interest in Korean-style chicken due to the spread of the Korean Wave. In July last year, the US global dining industry magazine Nation’s Restaurant News selected BBQ as one of the ‘Top 500 Restaurant Brands’ and announced that it ranked 5th among the fastest-growing brands.

However, operating profit in the fourth quarter of last year decreased by more than 50% compared to the first to third quarters. Despite price increase factors such as logistics costs caused by the global logistics crisis due to the spread of COVID-19 and rising prices of various raw and subsidiary materials needed for chicken preparation, BBQ stated that the headquarters has been bearing these costs as a way to share the burden.

BBQ recently judged that the profitability of franchise stores has declined due to increased burdens from delivery app commissions (intermediary fees) and rider (delivery personnel) costs as food delivery's share grew with the activation of non-face-to-face consumption. Accordingly, they plan to continue strengthening support to improve franchise profitability by promoting the use of BBQ’s own app, which has no separate intermediary fees, and actively implementing promotions fully covered by the headquarters.

A BBQ official said, “We will continue to strengthen support to improve family profitability by promoting the use of our own app and implementing promotions fully covered by the headquarters.”