CU (store)

CU (Korean: 씨유) (KRX: 027410) is a South Korean convenience store chain that is operated and owned by BGF Retail. It was formed after FamilyMart's franchise license in South Korea expired.

CU
Native name
Hangul씨유
Revised RomanizationShiyu
McCune–ReischauerShiyu
TypeSubsidiary
IndustryConvenience stores
Founded1990 (as Bogwang FamilyMart)
2012 (as CVS for You)
2017 (as CU)
Headquarters
South Korea
Number of locations
13820[1]
(as of November 2019)
Area served
Korea, Mongolia
OwnerBGF Retail
ParentBogwang Group
FamilyMart (former)
WebsiteBGF-CU.com

Development

Bogwang FamilyMart changed its name to BGF Retail in 2012 to launch its own convenience store brand, CU. The motive of this move was to establish a Korean style convenience store for the customers. CU stands for "CVS for U." Since 1990, FamilyMart had been dominating the South Korean convenience store market for 22 years. Bogwang Group and FamilyMart signed a contract that stated that by 2014, FamilyMart had to fully exit the South Korean market and cannot relaunch the FamilyMart franchise in both South Korea and North Korea until 2016. However, after FamilyMart's exit in 2014, the brand has not yet relaunched in the Korean peninsula. In April 2019, CU has started a delivery service, and magnified the service to 1000 stores in May.[2]

Relationship with FamilyMart

In 1990, FamilyMart officially launched their first store in South Korea, entering the market. The Bogwang FamilyMart Corporation had to give FamilyMart brand a royalty which meant that technically most of the money that FamilyMart made in South Korea was going to Japan. FamilyMart used a lot of their royalty from South Korea for the Takeshima Islands Movement which was a movement that was on Japan's side on the dispute of the Liancourt Rocks.

Therefore in 2012, the CU brand was launched, and over about two years BGF Retail changed the store signs from FamilyMart to CU. However, some store managers refused to change the store sign because they did not want to "restart" with a barely known brand and wanted to keep the FamilyMart sign. However, BGF Retail ended up changing all the signs forcefully, but later added "with FamilyMart" on the sign to get rid of customer confusion. However, CU stores made less profit because many people were not used to the brand. They started making profit, and by 2016 CU was as popular as FamilyMart.

Currently, FamilyMart has no control over CU. The "with FamilyMart" stickers that were on the store signs were taken off, and FamilyMart has completely disappeared from the South Korean market. However, during AFC (Asian Football Confederation) soccer matches, FamilyMart is still advertised even if the match is in South Korea. This is because FamilyMart is a partner of the AFC, and has nothing to do with the former Korean version of Bogwang FamilyMart.

Foreign operations

Iran

CU launched its first foreign store in November 2018, in Tehran, Iran. However, the store had not even operated for a month when it had to close because of US sanctions against Iran.

Mongolia

CU opened 104 stores in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. CU launched its first foreign store in November 2018, The stores are fully operational and BGF Retail said that they would focus on the Mongolian market for a while.

Malaysia

CU is planning to open 500 stores by 2026 with its first stores set to open in 2021, after reaching a partnership with local convenience store company MyNews Holdings Bhd. The group will be looking at opening 30 to 50 CU stores first to monitor how they perform.

References
  1. https://www.enewstoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1367630
  2. 강인선. "CU, 전국 1000여개 점포에서 배달 시작 - 매일경제". mk.co.kr (in Korean). Retrieved 2019-05-17.

https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/mynews-operate-south-koreas-cu-stores-malaysia


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