"Has the boycott ended?" Starbucks payment volume rebounds after 3 weeks... "Need to watch whether the recovery continues"

[Financial News] Starbucks' estimated weekly credit and debit card payment volume rebounded after three weeks, leading to analysis that use of Starbucks in South Korea, which had slowed after last month's Tank Day controversy, may be showing signs of recovery again.
According to Mobile Index, a mobile data platform run by IGAWorks Inc., on the 10th, Starbucks' estimated credit and debit card payment volume for the first week of June, from the 1st to the 7th, came to 24.21 billion won, up 12.8% from the previous week, the last week of May. That was the highest weekly level since the Tank Day controversy emerged on the 18th of last month.
Starbucks' weekly payment volume fell for two straight weeks, to 23.69 billion won in the week of May 18-24 and 21.46 billion won in the week of May 25-31, before turning higher in the first week of June. The number of weekly users of the Starbucks app also rose to 3,985,819 in the June 1-7 period, up 138,614, or 3.6%, from 3,847,205 in the previous week.
Still, the payment volume in the first week of June had not yet returned to pre-controversy levels. It was about 7.95 billion won lower than the 32.16 billion won recorded in the week of May 11-17. Industry sources said Starbucks' payment volume and app user count have moved away from the sharp decline seen at the end of May, but it remains to be seen whether the trend will continue as a recovery, given the cold response from some consumers.
bng@fnnews.com Kim Hee-sun Reporter