Name: Luckin. Age: Seven – it was founded in October 2017. Appearance: 20,000 locations and counting. Locations doing what? Serving coffee. It’s a giant coffee chain. Oh yeah? If it’s so giant, how come I’ve never heard of it? Because it started in China. Isn’t China better known for tea? Yes, but they have drunk a lot more coffee since Starbucks opened its first outlets there in 1999. Luckin overtook Starbucks as China’s biggest coffee chain in 2023. If Chinese people want Chinese coffee, so be it. It’s a big…
Tag: Coffee
China overtakes US as branded coffee shop capital of the world
The branded coffee chain craze may trace its roots to a single Starbucks in Seattle’s Pike Place market in 1971, but now China has toppled the US as the country with the most branded coffee shops. The number of branded coffee shops in China increased by 58% over the past 12 months to a record 49,691 outlets, according to research by World Coffee Portal. That was more than 9,000 in excess of the 40,062 in the US, where the market grew by just 4%. The US had held the crown…
In China Businesses Cut Prices as Consumers Spend Less
To understand today’s penny-pinching Chinese consumers, behold the vicious price war playing out among the country’s coffee store giants. Luckin Coffee, a popular Chinese chain, rose to prominence and opened 10,800 stores by successfully undercutting Starbucks’s prices. But now, Cotti Coffee, an upstart rival started by the same two people who founded Luckin, is undercutting Luckin’s prices. Cotti has opened stores near Luckin shops, and it is charging — in some cases — 1 yuan, or 15 cents, less than its rival for the same drink. Earlier this year, Cotti…