Ediya Coffee to open store in Guam in December

Ediya Coffee, Korea's third-largest coffee franchise by sales, said Wednesday it will open a store in Guam in December in the latest move to seek growth beyond the saturated Korean coffee market.

Ediya hopes its cafe near the Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport in the U.S. Pacific territory will become a stepping stone in its ultimate goal of entering the United States, where the brand has recently started exporting its instant coffee products.

"Our ultimate goal is to successfully make inroads into the U.S. market. Since about half of 1.5 million inbound tourists to Guam are Koreans, our strategy is to enter the global market by tapping into Korean consumers overseas who are familiar with our brand," a company spokesperson said.

Ediya Coffee Chairman Moon Chang-ki unveiled the plan during a press tour of Ediya's coffee bean production plant in Pyeongtaek, about 70 kilometers south of Seoul, on Tuesday.

Established in 2001, Ediya Coffee is a homegrown, lower-priced coffee franchise that operates around 3,000 stores in Korea.

The coffee chain opened its first overseas store in Beijing in 2005 before pulling out of the Chinese capital in 2008 due to faltering sales.

Yonhap