Why Korea Has So Many Fried Chicken Chains, by the Official Numbers

Korea does not have more chicken franchises than any other kind of franchise, and the official count is not simply climbing. The Fair Trade Commission counted 3.2% fewer chicken franchise outlets at the end of 2024 than a year earlier, and both Korean food and coffee had more outlets than chicken.

What the numbers do show is a sector built for franchising: many brands, a handful of very large chains, small outlets with about two workers each, and franchisors that earn more from supplies than in the other main food sectors. This guide sets out the two official counts, the history as the Academy of Korean Studies records it, and what that means when you see several chicken signs on one Seoul street. All figures come from the Korea Fair Trade Commission, the national statistics agency, the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture and the companies' own sites.

How many chicken chains exist

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) publishes the most detailed count, built from the disclosure documents that franchisors register with it. Its 2025 franchise statistics, released on 12 April 2026, count brands at the end of 2025 and outlets at the end of 2024.

By that count there were 681 chicken franchise brands at the end of 2025, up 5.3% from 647 a year earlier and 669 in 2023. Among the main restaurant sub-sectors the KFTC highlights, chicken ranks third by number of brands, behind Korean food (4,252) and coffee (921).

The outlet count moves the other way. The KFTC recorded 29,423 chicken franchise outlets in 2022, 29,711 in 2023 and 28,750 in 2024, a fall of 3.2% in the last year; its release says plainly that "치킨, 제과제빵 업종에서는 가맹점 수가 각각 3.2%, 1.4% 감소했다."

Chicken is still a big slice of franchised eating. Of 183,714 restaurant franchise outlets at the end of 2024, chicken accounted for 15.6%, just behind coffee at 15.8% and well behind Korean food at 23.9%.

The wider franchise economy is growing faster than chicken. The KFTC counts 9,960 franchisors, 13,725 brands and 379,739 franchise outlets across all sectors, with brands up 10.9% and outlets up 4.0%.

The biggest chicken chains are named in an annex to the KFTC release. At the end of 2024, BBQ (비비큐) had 2,316 outlets, BHC (비에이치씨) 2,228, Kyochon Chicken (교촌치킨) 1,361, Cheogajip Yangnyeom Chicken (처갓집양념치킨) 1,254 and Goobne Chicken (굽네치킨) 1,154.

The same annex lists the chains that opened most new outlets in 2024 after BBQ: Norang Tongdak (노랑통닭, 171), Gamachi Tongdak (가마치통닭, 121), Giyeongi Sutbul Dumari Chicken (기영이숯불두마리치킨, 106) and Jadam Chicken (자담치킨, 98). Two of those names use 통닭, the older word for whole chicken explained further down.

Two official counts that disagree

A second government count gives a different answer. The national statistics agency, 국가데이터처, published provisional franchise statistics on 24 December 2025 showing 31,397 chicken-specialist franchise outlets in 2024, up 5.3% from 29,805 in 2023.

So for the same year one agency shows chicken outlets falling by 3.2% and the other shows them rising by 5.3%. The statistics release explains why its figures differ: it starts from the KFTC's list of franchisees but links it to the national establishment census and tax data, and it states that it excludes some outlets that appear in the KFTC's registered data.

The statistics agency adds detail the KFTC does not. It counts 65,373 people working in chicken franchise outlets in 2024, down 2.4%, which works out at 2.08 workers per outlet; that 7.3% drop in workers per outlet is the steepest fall of any sector in the release's table.

It also puts chicken third by franchise sales, at 7.5% of all franchise revenue, behind convenience stores at 24.2% and Korean food at 16.5%. Sales per chicken outlet were 279.6 million won in 2024, up 1.9%.

The statistics agency also records that chicken franchise sales reached 8,779 billion won in 2024, up 7.3% from 8,180 billion won, so total takings grew faster than the number of outlets.

Neither agency makes chicken the largest franchise category. The statistics agency's largest are convenience stores (54,780 outlets) and Korean food (54,409), with coffee and non-alcoholic drinks at 34,735; chicken, at 31,397, is 10.0% of all franchise outlets.

Read the last column with care, because the statistics agency groups some sectors differently, for example pizza together with burgers. The table compares like with like only within each agency's own columns.

How chicken became a franchise food

Chicken in Korea was mostly boiled before it was roasted or fried. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, published by the Academy of Korean Studies, says chicken was mostly eaten as 백숙 (whole boiled chicken) until electric-rotisserie 통닭 became popular from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, typified by Myeongdong Nutrition Center (명동영양센터) in Seoul.

The word itself shifted over time. The encyclopedia says 통닭 originally covered any whole chicken, roasted or fried, and that chicken cut into pieces and deep-fried gradually came to be called 프라이드치킨, fried chicken.

American-style chicken arrived before the American brand. The entry says "Kentucky chicken" was a fashion from the 1970s to the early 1980s, but that the original KFC only entered Korea in 1984; before that, shops imported pressure fryers and sold "미국식 닭튀김", American-style fried chicken pieces.

The first franchise is named precisely. The encyclopedia says "'프랜차이즈 치킨'의 원조로는 1977년 법인 등록을 한 '림스치킨'이 꼽힌다", identifying Lim's Chicken, incorporated in 1977, as the original franchise chicken.

The Korean twist came next. According to the same entry, yangnyeom chicken, fried chicken coated in a sauce based on gochujang, brewed soy sauce and syrup, spread in the mid-to-late 1980s, and its first-generation brands include Pelicana (페리카나), Mexicana (멕시카나) and Cheogajip Yangnyeom Chicken.

The imitation phase left a paper trail. Among its references, the encyclopedia cites a 28 October 1980 Maeil Business newspaper item headlined as a report on fake "Kentucky" chicken shops trading without a contract with the American head office.

Pelicana's own account fills in dates, as company claims rather than independent record. Its company page says it began in 1979 as a small chicken shop in front of Daejeon Station and started franchising in 1981, and that it built a sauce from about 20 ingredients in the 1980s; its brand story page says a 1986 TV advert with a well-known jingle made the name famous.

The encyclopedia also records the scale reached by the mid-2010s: in 2014 the number of chicken shops in Korea was estimated at 35,000 to 50,000. That estimate covers all chicken shops, not only franchises, and the entry does not say how the range was estimated.

Frying styles differ, and the encyclopedia names them. Its entry describes 엠보치킨 with a very thin, dry-powdered coating popular in the late 1970s, smooth 민무늬치킨 made with a wet batter, and a three-stage 크리스피치킨 coating, and says smooth-batter chicken suits yangnyeom sauce best.

Why the brands keep multiplying

Official data shows four features of the chicken sector that stand out, though neither agency presents them as causes.

First, chicken has a high share of big chains. The KFTC says 7.9% of chicken brands had 100 or more outlets, against 2.9% across all restaurant franchises; among the main sub-sectors it reports, only pizza, at 7.6%, comes close.

Second, most chicken brands are tiny. Of the 681 chicken brands, 460, or 67.5%, had fewer than 10 outlets, and 167 had between 10 and 99. A few very large chains sit on top of a long tail of small ones.

Third, chicken franchisors earn more from supplies than those in the other main food sectors the KFTC reports. The KFTC measures 차액가맹금, the margin a franchisee pays above a fair wholesale price for goods it must buy from the franchisor, and found chicken outlets paid an average of 41 million won in 2024, the highest of the sectors it compares, equal to 9.5% of their sales (coffee 7.3%, bakery 4.9%, pizza 4.6%, Korean food 2.6%).

Fourth, the outlets are small operations. The statistics agency's figure is 2.08 workers per chicken outlet in 2024, down from 2.25 a year earlier, and it counts almost equal numbers of men (50.4%) and women (49.6%) working in them.

The restaurant sector as a whole is fragmented in the same way. The KFTC calculates 16.9 outlets per restaurant brand at the end of 2024, against 57.5 for service franchises and 107.3 for retail, and says restaurant brands are comparatively small-scale.

The KFTC also offers a general explanation for why brand counts are rising faster than outlet counts across all sectors. Its release says consumer trends now turn over faster, so operators increasingly run several small brands instead of concentrating on one, and that rising start-up costs make people reluctant to open a franchise outlet.

The regulator sees risk in that supply margin. Its 2026 release says the rise in franchisees' average supply-margin payments means disputes over excessive charges remain possible, and it lists planned measures including public posting of disclosure documents, mandatory consultation with franchisee associations and an explicit right for franchisees to terminate contracts.

Average sales hide a weak tail, and the KFTC points this out for chicken. Average chicken outlet sales were 328 million won in 2024, up 5.2%, but the release notes that coffee and chicken have a relatively high share of brands whose outlets have low average sales; 18.5% of chicken brands averaged under 100 million won per outlet.

The spread is wide at the top too. The KFTC counts 68 chicken brands, 21.7% of those reporting sales, whose outlets averaged 300 million won or more, and 116 brands, 37.1%, in the 100 to 200 million won band, the largest single group.

The KFTC's sales ranking shows that the biggest chains are not always the highest earners per shop. After Kyochon Chicken at 727 million won per outlet, the next highest averages belonged to Cheongnyeon Chicken (청년치킨, 610 million won), BHC (530 million won), Dasarang (다사랑, 529 million won) and Huraideu Cham Jalhaneun Jip (후라이드참잘하는집, 526 million won); the KFTC ranks only brands with at least the sector's average number of outlets.

Churn is lower than you might expect. The KFTC's chicken opening rate was 11.7% in 2024 and its closure rate 12.0%, both below the restaurant average of 18.2% and 15.8%, so the chicken sector is not turning over faster than other food franchises.

Reading a chicken shop sign

Chicken shop names and menus mix old and new words, and the encyclopedia explains most of them. The table below decodes the terms you are most likely to see; no official source publishes chicken menu prices, so the price column says so.

A shop called 통닭 is not necessarily old-fashioned. The KFTC's list of fastest-opening chains in 2024 includes Norang Tongdak and Gamachi Tongdak, so the old word is being used by new brands.

The steps below show how to check a chain yourself, using only the public registry and the KFTC's published tables.

Chimaek and chicken in Seoul

Chicken with beer has its own word, and the encyclopedia traces it to television. It says the term 치맥 caught on after a drama scene of a main character drinking beer with fried chicken became famous, and that on 복날, days when people once ate samgyetang, they now look for chicken instead.

The encyclopedia also notes that most of the country's leading convenience stores sell fried chicken or lunchboxes with chicken in them, so chicken is not confined to dedicated shops.

Korea's chicken-and-beer festival is held in Daegu, not Seoul. The Daegu Chimac Festival's official site says its 2026 edition ran from 1 to 5 July in the Duryu Park area of Daegu, estimates attendance at more than 1 million including 100,000 foreign visitors, and says the festival has been designated a culture and tourism festival by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for 2020 to 2027.

The festival organisers make a bigger claim for their city. Their introduction calls Daegu the centre of Korea's chicken industry and lists brands begun or well known there, including Mexicana, Cheogajip Yangnyeom Chicken and Kyochon Chicken; that is the organisers' promotional description, not an official statistic.

Seoul itself is not unusually dense in franchises. The statistics agency counted 52,855 franchise outlets of all kinds in Seoul in 2024, 56.3 per 10,000 residents, among the lowest ratios in the country and below the national 60.7; neither agency publishes a Seoul-only chicken count.

For eating out beyond chicken, our guide to ordering at Korean barbecue explains how barbecue restaurants work.

What the record does not show

A popular explanation for the chicken boom is the 1997 Asian financial crisis: laid-off office workers, the story goes, used their severance pay to open chicken shops. None of the official sources read for this guide makes that link, so treat it as a story rather than a documented cause.

The same applies to claims that Korea has more chicken shops than some other country or city. No official source read here compares Korea's count internationally, and the only all-shop estimate, 35,000 to 50,000 in 2014, comes from a single encyclopedia sentence.

Menu prices are not published by any official body read for this guide, and neither agency's statistics include them, so this guide gives none.

What does exist is a clear paper trail for the business side. Franchisors register disclosure documents, the KFTC publishes annual counts and top-five tables from them, and the statistics agency adds staffing and sales. For paying at a small shop, our note on cash or card in Seoul covers the basics.

What this guide does not cover

A Seoul-only count of chicken shops is not included because neither the KFTC nor the statistics agency publishes one in the releases read for this guide. The only Seoul figure available is the all-franchise total.

Independent, non-franchise chicken shops are not counted here. Both agencies count franchise outlets only, and no official figure for all chicken restaurants was found beyond the 2014 encyclopedia estimate.

Founding dates for BBQ and Kyochon Chicken are not given, because their official history pages could not be opened; only Pelicana's own dates are used. The National Folk Museum's encyclopedia entry on chicken also could not be loaded.

The 1997 crisis explanation is left unverified for the reasons above. If you are in Seoul for only a short stop, our first 24 hours guide covers the practical basics before any chicken dinner.