Heads of S.Korea's chicken chains promoting expansion abroad

The CEOs of South Korea's top three fried chicken franchises are promoting their brands overseas based on the judgement that growth will stagnate if they do business only on their hyper-competitive domestic market.

Kyochon F&B, which runs Kyochon Chicken, on Thursday opened its first branch in Taiwan at Global Mall Banqiao Station, a shopping center in New Taipei City. Covering 132 square meters, the store offers Kyochon's signature items "chimaek" (chicken and beer) and "chimyeon" (chicken and stir-fried noodles).

Kyochon F&B Chairman Kwon Won-gang hosted the opening ceremony for the branch. Because this was its first overseas expansion since he returned to his position late last year, the company will make the Taiwan store a model for others to be set up worldwide.

Compared to its competitors bhc and BB.Q Chicken, Kyochon started its global expansion relatively late, thus it decided to speed things up this year. October will see a second Kyochon branch opened in Taipei's top commercial district followed by a third before year's end.

Kyochon F&B runs 67 stores in seven countries.

Genesis BBQ Chairman Yoon Hong-Geun flew to Panama to attend on Wednesday the opening ceremony of his franchise's second branch there at Albrook Mall in Panama City. The first in the Central American state's city of San Francisco opened in May has seen success with average daily sales of $5,000.

Running around 700 stores in 57 countries, the company is considering expanding to Costa Rica after Panama.

bhc Chairman Park Hyeon-jong recently went on a business trip to Southeast Asia including Singapore. He is known to regularly participate in overseas market research to develop the brand and its menu.

Park also reportedly flew to San Francisco, California, for talks with the US burger chain Super Duper, a brand that bhc brought to South Korea last year.

Write to Soo-Jung Ha at agatha77@hankyung.com