(Economic Watch) The rapid growth of China's coffee market is Starbucks China's new launch is too slow?

　　China News Service, Guangzhou, June 17 (Reporter Xu Qingqing) Starbucks China has recently launched a new iced coffee category "Ice Shock Concentrate" series, which will serve as the core coffee category in resident stores in China.

Compared with China's fast-growing coffee market and the speed of the industry as a whole, Starbucks China's launch of more than 30 new products a year has been called "too slow" by industry insiders.

　　At present, drinking coffee has become a popular way of life for young people in China, and coffee has also become a daily drink for people. In shopping malls, office areas, bookstores and other occasions, a cup of coffee has become the choice of many people.

According to data from iiMedia Research, in 2021, the size of China's coffee market will be about 381.7 billion yuan. China's coffee market is entering a stage of rapid development. It is expected that the coffee industry will maintain a growth rate of 27.2%. In 2025, the size of China's coffee market will be up to 1 trillion yuan.

　　In the fast-growing Chinese coffee market, in addition to Starbucks, which entered China earlier, foreign brands such as Costa, Tims Horton, blue bottle, and Costa have also poured in in recent years, and local coffee brands such as Luckin and Manner have also sprung up. emerge.

At the same time, coffee is also favored by capital. Relevant data shows that under the background of repeated epidemics and the slowdown of financing in the catering industry, since January 2022 alone, 12 financing events have occurred on the coffee track, with a financing amount exceeding 3 billion yuan.

　　Although the competition is in full swing, Starbucks is still the top brand in the Chinese coffee market.

China is also Starbucks' largest overseas market.

According to Starbucks’ financial report for the second quarter of fiscal 2022, its stores in China have reached 5,654.

Wang Jingying, chairman of Starbucks China, also said that by the end of 2022, it is expected to reach 6,000 stores.

　　The new product launched by Starbucks China this time is the "Ice Shake Concentrate" series: fresh espresso is poured on ice cubes, and then the foam is "shaken" by the barista's hand, and finally oat milk is added.

The range comes in two flavors, Sea Salt Caramel Ice Shake Concentrate and Tahitian Vanilla Ice Shake Concentrate.

　　Starbucks China said that behind the new product is "Starbucks' unstoppable love for espresso coffee for 47 years." It is understood that Starbucks espresso roasted coffee beans have been born for 47 years and are sold to more than 70 countries and regions around the world.

Many coffee drinks, including Starbucks Americano, latte, caramel macchiato, etc., are based on Starbucks espresso.

Around espresso, Starbucks has developed a complete system for the selection of coffee beans, blending recipes, and roasting methods.

　　Food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng believes that most of today's consumers "love the new and hate the old", so the overall innovation speed of China's food and beverage industry is very fast.

For example, the local coffee brand Ruixing Coffee will only have 113 product updates in 2021, and 33 models will be launched in the first quarter of 2022.

He said, "Compared to the innovation speed of the entire industry, Starbucks China launches about 30 new products a year, which is generally slow and lower than the industry average."

　　But he also believes that in the current Chinese coffee market, in addition to the speed of innovation, the trend of coffee brands is also obvious.

But as China's leading coffee brand, it is strategic for Starbucks to restart its classic espresso.

　　Cai Delin, CEO of Starbucks China, also said that the series is a creative reconstruction based on classics. Category, in the future, there will be ice shock concentrates with different flavors in different seasons.

Cai Delin said that he expects this series to bring a brand-new exploration experience to coffee lovers and customers in China.

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