Starbucks China's Latest Plan! Partners Are Getting a Pay Raise!

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Starbucks China Unveils 2025 Strategic Vision

On September 14, Starbucks China released its 2025 China Strategic Vision. The plan mentions that over the next three years, the company will accelerate development through six growth engines! Simultaneously increasing the number of stores and accelerating the layout of green stores.

Starbucks will also focus on home coffee consumption and on-the-go coffee scenarios, upgrading digital membership systems, accelerating localized research and development of new coffee products, and improving employee salaries.

By 2025, Starbucks China's total store count is expected to reach 9,000, with an additional 35,000 employees, bringing the total to 95,000. The company aims to double its net revenue and achieve operating profits four times higher than current levels.

Since Starbucks opened its first store in Beijing in January 1999, Starbucks China has now reached over 5,600 stores.

In the past decade, the number of Starbucks stores in mainland China has increased nearly 10-fold, reaching 6,000 by the end of 2022. Now, the plan is to reach 9,000 stores in China by 2025, adding 3,000 more stores - which means opening a new store every 9 hours on average.

Store Formats and Green Initiatives

Starbucks will leverage digital capabilities to optimize store formats, creating appropriate store types centered around customer lifestyles.

Reserve stores will continue to fulfill the mission of enhancing the coffee experience, while all core stores will be dedicated to becoming part of the community, providing convenient and warm Starbucks experiences.

In terms of green store layout, it's expected that by 2025, approximately 2,500 green stores will be opened nationwide. Starting last year, Starbucks opened its globally "greenest" store in Shanghai's Qiantan Taikoo Li - Starbucks Greener Store - which officially opened.

As Starbucks' first global environmental experimental store, it practices the brand's most cutting-edge environmental initiatives, comprehensively exploring new models of recyclable green retail. Its opening marks a new phase for Starbucks and represents the official launch of Starbucks' "Green Store" certification system in China. Since then, Starbucks green stores have gradually opened in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and other locations.

Each certified green store will promote a greener, recyclable lifestyle and actively invite customers to join in practicing daily green habits.

Starbucks' "Green Store" certification system was developed jointly by Starbucks and authoritative institutions. Starbucks green stores need to meet 8 standards under this certification system. Through this series of positive initiatives to improve store energy efficiency, compared to ordinary Starbucks stores of the same size, each green store is expected to reduce approximately 10.57 tons of carbon emissions and 301.7 tons of water usage annually.

Leadership Vision and Market Competition

At the exchange meeting, Wang Jingying, Chairman of Starbucks China, expressed confidence in the future growth of Starbucks China without reservation: "After striving to overcome the challenges brought by the pandemic, Starbucks China has become more resilient in development.

Our confidence in the Chinese market is long-term and firm. This 2025 China Strategic Vision allows us to more deeply embrace new development opportunities and continue to lead the coffee industry forward."

However, there are many other coffee chain brands with significant market share in China, such as Luckin Coffee, COSTA Coffee, Manner Coffee, and more... According to Luckin Coffee's second-quarter 2022 financial report, the gap between Luckin and Starbucks is continuously narrowing.

According to data, as of the first half of this year, Luckin has reached 7,195 stores in China, more than 1,000 more than Starbucks. In terms of store count, Luckin has already become China's largest coffee chain brand. Having surpassed Starbucks as the coffee chain brand with the most stores in China, will this create pressure for Starbucks' future development?

Digital Growth and Infrastructure Investment

This plan also mentions fully leveraging the growth opportunities brought by digital platforms and continuously developing the "Starbucks Delivers" service. By 2025, it aims to achieve delivery business sales more than double the current performance. Currently, more than 5,000 dedicated delivery riders deliver Starbucks-quality coffee to customers outside stores in an average of just 19 minutes.

In addition, Starbucks China also introduced that the Starbucks Coffee Innovation Park, with an investment of approximately 1.1 billion RMB (156 million USD), will be officially completed and put into operation in the summer of 2023. At that time, Starbucks China will complete localized coverage of the entire coffee industry chain. It will have the largest Starbucks coffee roasting facility outside the US market and the greenest one globally.

Wang Jingying stated, "The future is promising, and we are ready to embrace broader opportunities with all partners in the Starbucks family, and jointly create the next brilliant chapter of Starbucks China."

Image source: Internet

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