Source | ZDian Consumption ID | ZDXFBA Author | ZDian Consumption
"Chinese people like to dilute coffee with water" "Chinese people don't have a habit of drinking coffee"... In the past, many were pessimistic about chain coffee businesses. Unexpectedly, young people who rely on "a cup of coffee to sustain life" have managed to create three 10,000-store chain coffee brands in the Chinese market: Luckin Coffee, Cotti Coffee, and Lucky Cup. Image source: @Lucky Cup It's worth noting that the three largest chain coffee brands by store count in China were all born domestically, and their founding dates are nearly 10 years later than Starbucks' entry into China in 1999. Three '10,000-Store Brands' On November 24, Lucky Cup, under Mixue Bingcheng, officially announced that its store count exceeded 10,000; on October 22 a year earlier, Cotti Coffee, founded only two years prior, announced it had surpassed 10,000 stores; two years ago in June, Luckin Coffee became the first coffee brand in China to exceed 10,000 stores. Meanwhile, Starbucks China, which just "sold itself," currently has only over 8,000 stores in the country, ranking fourth. However, its new goal is to "gradually expand Starbucks' store count in China to 20,000 in the future." According to data from ZM Yan (as of November 13), there are currently 1,653 coffee brands nationwide, with a total of 240,448 stores, a chain rate as high as 34.49%, and nearly 24,700 new stores added in the past year. Image source: @Cotti Coffee In the past year, the top three brands with the most new stores remain Luckin Coffee, Cotti Coffee, and Lucky Cup. Among them, Cotti Coffee added 6,794 stores, becoming the brand with the most new stores, while Luckin Coffee ranked second with 6,419, and Lucky Cup followed closely with 3,525. However, the combined market share of the three brands is only 21.83%. In terms of brand founding time, Luckin Coffee was established in 2017, Cotti Coffee in 2022, and Lucky Cup can be considered an "early riser," with its first store opening in 2017. 'Sneak Attack' on Starbucks Looking back at Luckin Coffee's success story, it is undoubtedly profound. Back then, Lu Zhengyao, relying on the team from "CAR Inc.," used typical internet tactics such as "burning money, subsidies, grabbing market share, and going public" to spark a new coffee craze. With a high-profile strategy, Luckin Coffee successfully listed on NASDAQ in just 18 months and taught countless Chinese people to "drink coffee." But the good times didn't last. Luckin Coffee later self-reported financial fraud, was eventually delisted, and paid $120 million to settle with the SEC. Subsequently, Luckin Coffee fell into internal "cleansing," and founder Lu Zhengyao was "kicked out." However, Lu Zhengyao, unwilling to accept this, went on to found Cotti Coffee with the original core team from Luckin. Since then, neither Luckin nor Cotti has managed to "eliminate" the other; through rounds of price wars, both brands have grown larger. Especially in fiscal year 2024, Luckin Coffee's annual revenue surpassed Starbucks China for the first time, claiming the industry championship. In contrast, although Lucky Cup got an early start, it was a brand "hiding behind" Mixue Bingcheng and "developing quietly," so its real momentum has only come in the past two years. On April 1, 2020, Lucky Cup announced it was opening franchising; by October 31, 2020, its store count had only exceeded 100; on June 9, 2022, Lucky Cup announced the signing of its 1,000th store. But according to the ZM Yan data above, Lucky Cup's rapid expansion has been concentrated mainly this year, especially after Mixue Bingcheng successfully went public (March 3). It was also this year that Lucky Cup "overtook" Starbucks in terms of store count. On June 26, 2025, Lucky Cup announced that its contracted store count nationwide exceeded 6,000; on August 21, its first overseas store opened in Malaysia; on September 22, its national store count surpassed 8,500, and its first store in Thailand opened; on October 25, it exceeded 9,000 stores; on November 24, the store count officially surpassed 10,000... In other words, in the last six months, Lucky Cup added more than 4,000 new stores. At this point, "Snow King" not only firmly holds the top spot in the new tea beverage sector as its main business, but has also directly pushed its "side business" into the top three in the industry. Gripping the 'Throat' of Price Without deep brand heritage or the "third place" selling point... Luckin, Cotti, and Lucky Cup have "overtaken" Starbucks mainly because price is their biggest "trump card." Image source: @Lucky Cup Public data shows that Starbucks' average ticket price is around 36 yuan, Luckin Coffee is around 14 yuan, Cotti is around 11 yuan, and Lucky Cup is only around 8 yuan. Especially in June last year, when major brands were still hesitating whether to continue the 9.9 yuan/cup pricing strategy, Lucky Cup launched "all items 6.6 yuan," directly pushing the price of freshly ground coffee in China to a new low. Zhu Danpeng, a food industry analyst in China, said: "Lucky Cup and Mixue Bingcheng, as 'brothers,' have created the current 'milk tea + coffee' twin-star pattern by adhering to a two-pronged approach. Lucky Cup, with its low-price strategy, precisely targets the low-consumption market, small-town youth market, and high cost-performance market, hitting Chinese consumers who pursue high quality at low prices. So I definitely see a bright future for it." In the price war among major chain coffee brands, Starbucks has also had to "lower its proud head." In June 2025, Starbucks China cut prices for the first time in 25 years, reducing prices across its three major categories—Frappuccino, Iced Shaken Tea, and Tea Latte—with the lowest dropping to 23 yuan. However, compared to Starbucks, domestic chain coffee brands mainly rely on "franchising." Under this business model, management of franchisees and product quality is naturally not as good as direct operation. Moreover, as regional markets become increasingly saturated, coupled with product prices falling further, despite various subsidies from major brands, many franchisees are also suffering, because they have invested real money, but the payback period is getting longer and longer... Therefore, the domestic chain coffee market is still far from optimistic.