South Korea's online food delivery market grew 79% in 2020

South Korea's online food delivery service market surged nearly 80% in 2020 from a year ago amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to government data.

Data from Statistics Korea showed that online food service transactions reached 17.4 trillion won ($15.5 billion) last year , up 78.6% from the previous year. This is nearly 6.4 times the 2.7 trillion won recorded in 2017, when the statistics agency began tracking the data .

Of the total transactions, 95 % were conducted via mobile devices, totaling 16.5 trillion won, while the rest were conducted over the internet.

Last year's surge was attributed to the coronavirus outbreak, which forced people to give up dining out, a preference for ordering services in emergencies, and the rise in demand for delivery as people worked from home and took classes online. The number of people ordering food using food delivery apps also increased rapidly.

"Although the food delivery market has been growing steadily , the COVID-19 pandemic is still an opportunity to accelerate its development, " said an industry insider .

For food delivery company Barogo , the number of deliveries nationwide reached 133.22 million last year, an increase of 134.0% over the previous year.

In the past, most of the takeout food in Korea was chicken and pizza, but now the takeout items have begun to include coffee, bread, ice cream and even more kinds of food.

Image credit: Bon Bento

Take the Korean gourmet bento "Bon Bento" as an example. With its unique and rich menu, the bento box's annual customer sales exceeded 140 billion won last year after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic , and achieved monthly sales of 18 billion won in December, setting a record high performance ever.

In addition, the brand 's overall delivery sales in 2020 also increased by 22.8% compared to 2019.

In addition, Bon Bento recently stated that the analysis of the sales performance of its own application (app) and delivery application showed that the brand 's delivery sales in the first two months of this year increased by 54% from the same period last year to 26.7 billion won.

South Korea's local online food delivery service market will further expand due to growing consumer demand and virus restrictions on restaurants, according to South Korean media .

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