Animated character products’ popularity boost CU sales

[Courtesy of CU]

Animated character-licensed products are gaining popularity among Korean young customers, boosting sales at corner stores.

Korean convenience store chain CU, operated by BGF Retail Co., said on Wednesday that sales of character-licensed products increased by 12.5 times in 2022 compared to the previous year and rose 4.2 times in 2023. CU offers a variety of cartoon and emoji character-licensed products on its shelves, ranging from protein drinks to cookies.

Products featuring widely recognizable and friendly animated characters sold particularly well.

The most beloved character among consumers was the cartoon character Crayon Shin-chan. In a breakdown of CU’s sales of character-licensed products in 2023, Crayon Shin-chan characters accounted for 44 percent of the total, followed by characters from the cartoon and animation series One Piece at 20 percent and Detective Conan at 16 percent respectively. Characters from the video game Cookie Run Kingdom and the mascot Tongtonge from popular Seoul-based café Neighbor Tongtonge were also popular, accounting for 12 percent and 5 percent respectively.

The primary consumer group for these products was those born from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. Looking more specifically at age groups, customers in their 20s accounted for 30.1 percent of the group, followed by those in their 30s at 25.8 percent and together making up more than 50% of the group itself. There was also a high percentage of teenagers at 22.5 percent, which is four times the share of teenagers in CU’s overall sales at 5.5 percent.

Encouraged by the popularity of the products, CU plans to continue introducing more character-licensed products in 2024, with a scheduled release of products licensed with popular emoji characters on text messaging applications, such as the bear character by artist Yurang and the Minini series from Line Friends.

“Via our collaborations in various fields, including animated characters, we plan to introduce distinctive CU-only products,” BGF Retail managing director Jin Young-ho said.