Author: Pan Xian
Source: Snack Agency (ID: foodinc)
Cover image source: Xiaohongshu @ Luckin Coffee
Luckin Coffee may run faster.
Snacks Agency noticed that recently, "Yunnan Net" hosted by Yunnan Daily Newspaper Group published an article about Luckin Coffee's layout of Yunnan coffee, stating that by 2030, Luckin Coffee plans to have over 80000 stores worldwide, with annual beverage sales exceeding 10 billion cups and a total demand for coffee beans exceeding 240000 tons, of which Yunnan's procurement demand is expected to reach 80000 tons.
As of 2025, Luckin Coffee has over 31000 global stores.
If the above plan has been finalized by the company, it means that Luckin will continue to accelerate the opening of stores, even faster than "building 1.5 Luckin stores in five years". If the 80000 store plan is successfully achieved, Luckin Coffee is also likely to surpass Starbucks and become the king of global coffee chains.
Let's take a look together below.
Quite radical
During today's communication with several professionals in the coffee and tea beverage industry, they all told the snack agency that they had never heard of Luckin Coffee's 80000 store plan and believed that this number was quite radical. As of the time of writing, Luckin has not provided any comments on the 80000 store plan.
So, what is the concept behind Luckin opening over 80000 stores? By 2025, the total number of Luckin stores will be 31048. If the number of stores exceeds 80000 by the end of 2030, it means that the company will add an average of 9790 new stores per year, which is equivalent to an average of about 27 new stores added per day.
Compared to Luckin Coffee's expansion pace in recent years, this is a more aggressive but not entirely impossible level.
From 2023 to 2025, the company's net new stores for the whole year will be 8034, 6092, and 8708 respectively, and will further accelerate to 5262 in the first half of 2026. If it continues to maintain in the second half of the year, Luckin Coffee's net new stores for the whole year of 2026 are expected to exceed 10000, meeting the speed required for the 80000 store plan.
If Luckin Coffee achieves its 80000 store plan by 2030, it is highly likely to surpass Starbucks and become the coffee chain with the largest number of stores worldwide.
As of the first half of the year, Starbucks still has a larger global store scale than Luckin, but the difference between the two is only about 5000 stores, and Starbucks' current store opening speed is significantly slower than Luckin's.
According to the financial reports of both companies, as of June 28, 2026, Starbucks had 41304 stores worldwide, with a net increase of 207 stores year-on-year. As of June 30, 2026, Luckin Coffee has 36310 stores worldwide, with a net increase of 10104 stores compared to the same period last year.
In 2023, Starbucks proposed to have 55000 global stores by 2030. But as this coffee chain undergoes a change in leadership and strategic adjustments, it is currently unclear whether this goal has been adjusted.
According to the company's new strategy released in January this year, there is an opportunity to open 5000 new stores in the United States; The number of stores outside the United States is expected to approach 40000, doubling in size, driven by an increase in the Chinese market to 15000 to 20000 coffee shops.
However, these numbers are based on a long-term perspective and do not provide a timeline for achievement. The current exact target is that Starbucks plans to add 600-650 new stores globally in the 2026 fiscal year, and over 2000 new stores in the 2028 fiscal year, which is much slower than Luckin's current level.
In fact, under the trend of tea and coffee integration, Wan Dian chain stores including Mi Xue, Gu Ming, and Hu Shang Auntie have introduced or upgraded their coffee product lines to existing stores to compete for sales during breakfast and other time periods. Their layout undoubtedly brings greater challenges to Luckin Coffee.
For example, Meixue Group is actively increasing its coffee business this year. Among them, some stores in Meixue Ice City have introduced freshly ground coffee machines, while Lucky Coffee plans to invest hundreds of millions of yuan in brand marketing, mini program APP, space experience and other work.
As of December 31, 2025, Meixue Group has approximately 60000 stores worldwide, almost the size of two Luckin stores, with over 90% of stores located in mainland China.
Guming is striving to achieve its goal of 20000 stores by 2027. As of December 31, 2025, the company has 13554 stores, of which over 12000 are equipped with coffee machines. This year, the company will focus on creating differentiated coffee products. I hope our track changes from milk tea to tea cafes, "said Wang Yun'an, Chairman and CEO of Guming.
This year, Shanghai Auntie proposed the "Tea and Coffee Dual Wheel Drive" strategy. At the 2026 interim performance report meeting, its senior management revealed that currently more than 9000 stores are equipped with upgraded coffee machines. In the future, it will continue to promote an increase in the proportion of cups and improve operations, such as upgrading coffee beans and refining services. This year, the Shanghai Auntie brand plans to open 2000-3000 new stores.
Previously, Chabaidao also set a goal of covering 2000 coffee stores by the end of 2026. But the target has already been exceeded ahead of schedule, covering over 2700 stores as of June this year.
Expressing determination
In the new competitive situation created by the integration of tea and coffee, Luckin Coffee is also "counterattacking". For example, the company launched a full category themed event in June this year and shouted the slogan "Lucky is enough". Its coffee, fruit tea, light milk tea, fruit and vegetable tea, lemon tea, and other products all participated in the limited time event starting from 9.9 yuan.
In addition to product strategy upgrades, store expansion is also seen as a defensive weapon.
For the coffee and tea beverage industry, while ensuring same store sales, wider and denser stores not only mean increased revenue, but also help to enhance profit margins by expanding economies of scale. If the number of stores does not increase, it will be difficult for business volume and revenue to grow, so opening more stores is still an important measure for many catering chains, "said a catering industry manager.
Luckin executives have repeatedly stated that expanding stores is a measure to defend their long-term advantageous position.
On the premise of ensuring the health of the single store model, promoting the construction of the store network at a competitive speed is also an important means to continuously strengthen the scale advantage and long-term market layout, "said Guo Jinyi, CEO of Luckin Coffee, at the 2026 first quarter performance report meeting. The Chinese coffee market is still in a rapid development period of sustained demand release, and the long-term growth space is very broad.
If we really push forward with the 80000 store plan, domestic encryption and overseas expansion are considered the "two legs" of Luckin's store opening.
In June this year, Goldman Sachs put forward in a Ruixing research paper that the company's store expansion space in Chinese Mainland is still abundant. By the end of 2025, Ruixing's GMV share in the freshly ground coffee market in Chinese Mainland had reached 28%, about twice that of Starbucks, the second largest brand.
Based on the 35% share of 711 coffee (City Caf é) in Taiwan, China's freshly ground coffee market (note: this brand is the largest coffee chain in Taiwan), it is estimated that if Ruixing reaches the same market share, the number of corresponding stores will be about 56000, with a ceiling of about 69000.
Goldman Sachs believes that the core logic supporting this goal includes: Luckin's high accessibility and cost-effectiveness lay the foundation for increasing penetration rate; Accumulated active users and members through self owned apps or mini programs, forming strong data-driven operational capabilities; Non coffee products can help expand the consumption scenarios and customer base in lower tier cities.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs maintains a cautious attitude towards Luckin's overseas business and expects that the overseas revenue contribution in 2028 will only be in the low single digit percentage.
Among them, the market size of freshly ground beverages in Southeast Asia is only about 0.3 times that of China, with relatively limited growth potential. In the United States, Luckin Coffee faces a series of challenges, including competition between Starbucks and Dunkin's, the lack of established consumer habits for digital ordering through the app, and a more complex and costly store opening process.
In the eyes of industry insiders, whether it is domestic or overseas, Luckin's rapid expansion will face many challenges.
Wang Zhendong, Chairman of Shanghai Feiyue Investment Management Co., Ltd., believes that in China, store encryption may divert sales from stores of the same brand and restrict the growth of single store revenue.
If Luckin Coffee wants to continue sinking, it will face competition from brands such as Lucky Coffee on one hand, and on the other hand, it will have to deal with the problem of weak consumption power in the county-level market and consumer spending concentrated on essential meals.
He also pointed out that overseas, Luckin Coffee's business model still needs to be tested, such as whether the product concept of "coffee milk tea transformation (note: such as tea coffee, fruit coffee)" can be replicated, and whether the early reliance on takeout and subsidies can succeed.
Although overseas markets have mature coffee consumption habits, they also generally have strong local brands, and consumers' drinking habits are fixed, creating natural barriers to accepting foreign brands. In addition, although Luckin Coffee's major shareholder, Dazheng Capital, has acquired Blue Bottle Coffee, this positioning as a boutique chain brand is not suitable for rapid expansion.
In my opinion, Luckin's 80000 store plan is more like demonstrating its determination to continue expanding, and it is not necessarily a hard target that must be achieved. If we really want to achieve this goal, we will have to put in too much effort, "said Wang Zhendong.
The above-mentioned catering industry managers believe that the benefits of Luckin Coffee's decentralized encryption are cheap rent and easy profitability, but it is necessary to cultivate the drinking habits of rural consumers.
Overseas, the company needs to address issues such as how to build a talent team that matches overseas business needs, effectively manage overseas stores, and how to reach and support overseas business through the domestic supply chain.
Although we have not yet learned Luckin Coffee's true thoughts on the 80000 store plan, it is certain that the largest coffee chain in China has not stopped preparing for rapid expansion.
In the supply chain, last year, Luckin Coffee (Xiamen) Innovation Industrial Park project officially started construction, with a total investment of 3 billion yuan. After completion, it will become China's largest single unit coffee roasting factory, with a planned annual roasting capacity of 55000 tons and an annual processing capacity of over 100000 tons of green beans.
Combined with three roasting factories located in Qingdao, Kunshan, and Pingnan, Luckin Coffee's total roasting capacity will exceed 155000 tons.
At sea, Guo Jinyi revealed this year that Luckin Coffee has completed the integration of its international business platform, enhancing its operational management capabilities for overseas expansion. With the support of a systematic platform, the company will continue to deepen its existing market, accumulate overseas operational experience, and steadily promote overseas market expansion.
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