At a Glance (China Coffee Network): Bottled coffee—long a marginal category—has become a new battleground. As Luckin and Dongpeng Beverage roll out RTD lines and challenge Nestlé and Starbucks on supermarket shelves, China’s coffee market is opening a “second growth curve” beyond the store.
Bottled coffee, long confined to the margins, is becoming a market focal point.
Before this, brands including Starbucks, Costa, Peet’s Coffee, Nongfu Spring, Dongpeng, Fino, TASOGARE, and even Yili began laying out positions in the bottled-coffee field. Luckin’s entry has made the market even livelier. According to reports, at the end of April Luckin launched its bottled ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee series “Luckin Instant Enjoy,” with first-day sales exceeding 1 million bottles. Per Luckin Instant Enjoy’s official data, its bottled RTD coffee sold over 1 million bottles through online channels within the first 24 hours of launch.
Having weathered several rounds of the coffee wars, coffee has achieved rapid penetration and explosive growth in the Chinese market. But as coffee penetration deepens, RTD bottled coffee has become a brand-new growth pole.
According to data from Mashangying, in the first quarter of 2026, RTD coffee led year-on-year growth with a 7.22% increase, surpassing traditional hot categories including RTD tea, energy drinks, and RTD milk tea.
And the market size of bottled coffee beverages may keep climbing. According to Euromonitor forecasts, China’s RTD coffee retail scale was 7.78 billion yuan in 2025 and is expected to grow to about 8.38 billion yuan by 2030.
From the 9.9-yuan price war to ubiquitous freshly made coffee stores, with coffee mindshare fully established, bottled coffee has become an indispensable piece of the coffee-trend puzzle.
Covering a broader consumer base with more diverse price tiers and product forms—this is a key factor driving Luckin’s entry, and the fundamental motivation for Starbucks, Costa, Peet’s Coffee, TASOGARE and many other brands to successively launch bottled-coffee products.
From cup to bottle—this is also a microcosm of domestic freshly made coffee collectively crossing over into the bottled RTD track, and a microcosm of the exploration of a “second growth curve.” Major coffee brands are gradually stepping out of the store scenario, extending the battlefield to supermarket and convenience-store shelves; the RTD coffee track’s transformation has already begun.
Although Starbucks is growing at a near-20% year-on-year sales-growth rate, as Dongpeng grows rapidly, the gap between the two is gradually narrowing.
Mashangying data shows that from December 2024 to November 2025, Dongpeng Beverage’s RTD coffee brand “Dongpeng Daka” surpassed Coca-Cola’s Costa with a nearly 14% market share, entering the industry’s top three, behind only Nestlé and Starbucks.
Records show that Dongpeng Daka’s year-on-year sales-growth rate exceeded 50% in every month of the past year, with some months surpassing 100%.
By April, Dongpeng Daka held about a 13% market share with a year-on-year sales-growth rate above 70%, and its share was already very close to Starbucks’; if this growth pace continues, Dongpeng Daka could overtake Starbucks within this year.
In contrast, although Nestlé coffee still holds the “top seat” with a nearly 40% market share, both its market share and year-on-year sales are in negative growth.
Starting in 2026, Dongpeng Beverage launched its “1+6” product matrix. Beyond continuing to consolidate its cornerstone business “Dongpeng Te’yin” (energy drink), it will further promote six major categories: the electrolyte drink “Dongpeng Bushuila” (rehydration), the large-pack tea drink “Guo Zhi Cha,” the coconut drink “Haidao Ye,” the RTD milk tea “Gang Shi Milk Tea,” the sugar-free tea “Shang Cha,” and the RTD coffee “Dongpeng Daka.”
Among these, Dongpeng Bushuila grew rapidly in 2025. Per Dongpeng Beverage’s third-quarter report, Bushuila’s first three quarters’ revenue reached 2.847 billion yuan, with its revenue share jumping to 16.91%, regarded as the company’s “second growth curve.”
“Daka can be understood as a flavor similar to an energy drink,” said Wang Jieqi, CEO of Mashangying. Dongpeng Daka and Dongpeng Te’yin share fairly similar functional traits, and thus also a high degree of channel overlap. For Dongpeng, this is the optimal way to achieve channel reuse—and its long-standing advantage and forte.
And from the perspective of bottled beverages, after prices gradually declined, the next step is the full popularization of large-format bottles.
Unlike Nestlé and Starbucks, whose products are mainly 200–300 ml, Dongpeng Daka’s specifications rose from 410 ml to 480 ml; Uni-President and Yetai also maintain specifications above 400 ml over the long term; Nongfu Spring’s Tanbing even launched a 900 ml large-format product.
“In the past, people thought coffee was a strongly functional product that didn’t need large bottles. But as consumption habits change, coffee is transforming toward an everyday beverage, and large bottles are gradually becoming a trend,” Wang said.
But this beverage-style playbook is clearly different from the lifestyle strategy Starbucks advocates, which has led the two down different paths in both product outcomes and channel strategy.
Dongpeng is not the only one “sniping” Starbucks.
According to industry insiders close to Luckin, Luckin’s layout in bottled beverages actually began as early as last year.
Currently, Luckin’s RTD coffee comes in three flavors—raw-coconut latte, classic Americano, and grapefruit-C Americano—each 360 ml. Although the SKU count is small, Luckin still promotes the product through multiple channels simultaneously: online channels covering Tmall, JD, Douyin, Pinduoduo, and Luckin’s own app and mini-program; offline channels including supermarkets, convenience stores, instant-retail platforms, and discount-snack chains; and also penetrating transportation, campus, and other scenarios.
The brand has completed provincial-agent recruitment and continues to accelerate offline terminal distribution, promoting the “store freshly-made + shelf RTD” dual-format fusion and formally opening its second growth curve.
Previously, Luckin Instant Enjoy’s product line already spanned concentrated coffee liquid, instant/freeze-dried coffee, coffee beans, and drip-bag/capsule coffee.
Luckin’s bet on RTD coffee may also stem from the category’s strong performance in recent years.
In the bottled-coffee field, not only is Dongpeng Daka growing rapidly; brands represented by C’estbon (Yibao) and Nongfu Spring have also achieved considerable results over the past period—
Over the past year, C’estbon, by substantially increasing investment, achieved a year-on-year sales-growth rate above 1,000%; Nongfu Spring revamped its long-running Tanbing RTD coffee series and sharply increased market investment, achieving a year-on-year sales-growth rate near 40%. In this process, both C’estbon’s and Nongfu Spring’s market shares also saw clear year-on-year growth.
For Luckin, pushing into bottled RTD coffee may help further break through its growth bottleneck. On one hand, domestic freshly made coffee competition is increasingly fierce, while the RTD coffee market may bring brand-new growth opportunities; on the other hand, the RTD track is dominated by traditional FMCG brands whose products generally suffer from stale flavors, high sweetness, and severe homogenization—the entry of freshly made coffee brands may bring the category a product-model upgrade toward youthfulness, hit products, and health.
At the same time, leveraging the traffic foundation of thousands or even tens of thousands of offline stores, combined with an omnichannel model of online e-commerce, instant retail, and full offline terminal distribution, it can achieve two-way linkage of “store traffic + shelf conversion,” feeding back the brand reputation and user stickiness of offline stores.
However, unlike Dongpeng Daka’s strategy of rapid distribution seeking new-product growth, in Wang’s view, Luckin’s purpose in developing RTD coffee is to cover more scenarios and channels its stores cannot reach.
These include convenience stores, Luckin’s own small-format stores, and even entry into mid-to-high-end channels such as Sam’s Club—not a full entry into traditional retail channels to directly compete head-on with mature products from Nestlé, Starbucks, Dongpeng and others.
From a cup of freshly made coffee in-store to a bottle of RTD coffee on the shelf, the boundaries of China’s coffee market keep broadening. With the backing of a host of freshly made brands, the RTD coffee track will bid farewell to the past and step into a brand-new competitive landscape. (Author: Xie Xuan; Editor: Gai Hongda)
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