Chinese tea drink MIXUE to list in Hong Kong, surpassing 45,000 outlets to overtake Starbucks as world leader.
More than Starbucks?
Dear Tea Enthusiasts,
I would like to interrupt my trip to Guangzhou this time to share some surprising news for the tea industry.
Citing an article in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun of 19 January 2025.
On 1 January 2025, Chinese budget tea drink chain Honey Snow Bing Cheng (蜜雪冰城: MIXUE) updated the prospectus it had filed with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company said it intends to raise its global profile, raise international funding and optimise its capital structure through a listing.
As of 30 September 2024, the company had more than 45,000 shops worldwide.
Starting from a small milk tea shop in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, Honey Snow Bingcheng has overtaken McDonald's and Starbucks to become the world's largest food and beverage brand Of the 45,000 shops, 45,110 are in mainland China, with the remaining 4,800 shops (about 11%) in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, Japan and 11 other countries.
The company is expanding its shop network through a franchise model: more than 99% of its shops are franchisees, and most of its revenues come from sales of foodstuffs, consumables, milk tea makers and ice machines sold to franchisees. 2023 sales were RMB 20.302 billion (approximately JPY 450 billion), with net profit of RMB 3.187 billion. In the first nine months of 2012, sales were 18.66 billion yuan (about 410 billion yen) and net profit was 3.491 billion yuan (about 77 billion yen).
Starbucks is well-known in Japan, where drinking coffee with a MacBook is the standard style. Many Japanese love this coffee shop, but it is hard to believe that one day a tea shop will surpass it. Numbers are strength. The fact that tea has overtaken coffee is great news for tea lovers.
Thank you for reading.
With Tea,
teaholics