Weekly #19: China beverage going aboard🧋, TFBOYS’ economy-boosting concert👩🏼‍🎤, Dufry and Hainan’s travel retail ✈️ | Following the yuan

Both of Luckin and HeyTea face poor reviews due to a lack of local consumer insights and preparation.

If you love coffee and are on LinkedIn, you should *connect* with me to stay updated on all my Starbucks shit posts. I’m basically using LinkedIn as my personal Yelp.

Most recently, I posted about how Luckin Coffee’s revenue beat that of Starbucks China in the most recent quarter, here are some details in emojis because I can only seem to digest things that way:

📈Revenue: Luckin ($855.2 million) VS Starbucks China ($821.9 million)

📍Store number: Luckin (over 10,000) VS Starbucks China (nearly 6,500)

🧑‍🤝‍🧑Franchisee: 24% of Luckin’s Q2 revenue comes from partnership stores VS Starbucks China has none

🧮 Operating margin: Luckin (29.1%) VS Starbucks (17.3%)

What's intriguing is that some comments under the post suggest lingering doubts about Luckin's credibility due to the financial fraud and delisting. While that's understandable, isn't it somewhat biased to remain skeptical even after the key figures behind the manipulation, Lu Zhengyao and Jenny Qian, were ousted from the company? Or could this skepticism be rooted in prejudice?

If you haven't already, I recommend reading this WSJ article about Sean Ma, a hedge-fund manager who played a role in exposing the company's fraud and is now betting on its resurgence. I believe that a company is a reflection of its founders. When it comes to skepticism, it might be wise to focus it on Cotti Coffee, the project founded by Lu and Qian last year to compete with Luckin.

1. China beverage going aboard🧋

The fact: In Q2 2023, Luckin Coffee, Starbucks China's rival, opened five new stores in Singapore. Despite having established over 10,000 stores in China, Luckin is using Singapore as a hub for its expansion into Southeast Asia. Interestingly, Luckin has chosen to price its offerings higher than Starbucks'.

HeyTea, on the other hand, ventured beyond Asia with its first franchise in London's China Town. The company also revealed plans to establish overseas franchises in countries like the US and Canada.