China Net Finance, August 12th (Reporter Chen Qiong) The hot tea beverage market is attracting coffee giants to increase their investment. On August 11th, Luckin Coffee officially announced Liu Yifei as the global brand ambassador and chief recommendation officer for tea drinks, which to some extent opened the prelude for Luckin Coffee to expand into new categories and focus on full-time consumption. It is reported that Luckin Coffee has chosen "real tea, good milk, light burden" as the entry point for the tea beverage market, meeting consumers' demand for healthy tea products while also targeting the important time period of afternoon tea layout.
Luckin Coffee launches' Morning Coffee and Afternoon Tea 'mode
China Net Finance reporter learned that Luckin Coffee, which has just launched a new tea beverage product, has also officially launched a large-scale marketing campaign. On August 12th, Luckin Coffee launched the "Morning Coffee and Afternoon Tea - Send 100 million cups of 9.9 pm tea" activity. Starting from August 12th, consumers who purchase any cup of beverage through the official designated ordering channel of Luckin Coffee will receive a 9.9 yuan afternoon tea voucher as a gift. It is reported that the afternoon tea voucher is locked in for use after 4 o'clock, promoting the effective activation of coffee consumption during non peak hours in stores. This is seen as an important measure for Luckin Coffee to layout all time and all scene consumption.
At present, Luckin Coffee is promoting new tea beverage products to tap into the diverse consumption scenarios of "morning coffee and afternoon tea". China Net Finance reporters learned that a week ago, Luckin Coffee's Light Jasmine · Light Milk Tea was officially launched. In terms of raw materials, Light Jasmine · Light Milk Tea uses seven pot double petal jasmine tea, which focuses on "real tea, good milk, light burden". The default options and standard production and sales of the beverage achieve 0 vegetable fat powder, 0 aspartame, 0 hydrogenated vegetable oil, 0 trans fatty acids, and the "4 zeros" standard accurately conforms to the trend of health in the tea beverage industry.
Luckin Coffee, known as the "hot seller", has created a series of popular drinks in the market in recent years. The most typical example is the coconut latte, which sold 700 million cups in 3 years and exceeded 10 billion yuan in sales, ushering in a coconut era in the entire beverage industry in China. Now, Luckin Coffee has launched tea beverage products, and the market is full of expectations for its explosive product development. According to the latest data provided by Luckin Coffee, the sales volume of Qingqing Jasmine exceeded 11 million cups in the first week, making it the best first week of new products this year.
Industry insiders generally believe that the similarity between tea drinks and freshly made coffee is high, and the core competitiveness of chain brands ultimately lies in the supply chain. The freshly ground coffee field has extremely strong functional attributes, and its professional ability crosses over tea drinks, with natural advantages. And Luckin Coffee's strong product capabilities, years of accumulated user base, as well as advantages in brand, scale, supply chain, digitalization, etc., make it more natural for Luckin Coffee to break through category boundaries at present.
The tea beverage industry has broad market prospects
The tea beverage industry in 2024 is highly competitive, but it is still considered a good business. According to a report by the China Chain Store Association, the estimated size of the new tea beverage market in China is 149.8 billion yuan in 2023, and the domestic consumer market is expected to exceed 200 billion yuan by 2025. The market development prospects remain broad.
According to relevant research reports, the sinking market and overseas market are still important growth tracks for tea beverage brands, and the Southeast Asian market has become a new opportunity for tea beverage brand growth. Currently holding 20000 stores, Luckin Coffee has a strong presence in the lower tier and overseas markets, and its newly launched tea beverage products have a natural advantage in penetrating these markets.
In addition, diversified consumer demands and increasingly diverse consumption scenarios have also brought new challenges to tea beverage merchants. Industry experts point out that tea beverage merchants need to continue to make efforts in expanding innovative product categories, optimizing supply chain systems, and introducing digital technology. Luckin Coffee has strong advantages in the supply chain system and digital technology. In this context, Luckin Coffee has chosen to intensify its efforts in the hot tea beverage industry, and its huge impact on the tea beverage industry will be self-evident.
Coffee growth remains strong, with tea drinks driving Luckin Coffee's afternoon and evening cup volume
At present, Luckin Coffee is the coffee chain brand with the largest number of stores in China, with 20000 stores. Industry insiders point out that scale is a difficult advantage for Luckin Coffee to replicate, and freshly brewed coffee has strong functional attributes, strict production processes, and high professionalism in the entire beverage market.
The coffee industry is experimenting with tea drinks, driven by the ambition of businesses to meet the diverse needs of users and seize full time consumption. Coffee consumers generally have relatively fixed consumption periods, namely morning and afternoon, and tea drinks are more leisure oriented and belong to full-time consumption. Industry insiders pointed out that Luckin Coffee's tea drink products can activate the non peak consumption period of coffee, especially the 9.9 yuan discount price after 4 pm, which reflects the ultimate cost-effectiveness and competitive advantage.
Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng said, "Luckin Coffee is the coffee chain brand with the largest number of stores in China, and it is also a professional coffee brand. With its professionalism, Luckin Coffee produces tea drinks with guaranteed quality. At the same time, with its huge user base, scale, and efficiency advantages, Luckin Coffee's tea drink making is also natural. From a market perspective, Luckin Coffee's move is in line with the future development trend of the Chinese beverage market, which is the mutual infiltration of coffee and tea drinks, the mutual promotion of functional drinks and leisure drinks, and the integration of tracks. By continuously enriching product categories, opening up more consumer scenarios, and stimulating more consumer power, Luckin Coffee's tea drink making may once again trigger a new wave of integration between the coffee industry and tea drinks. The trend sets a new benchmark for development in the industry