Starbucks China after the joint venture: plans to increase the number of county-level and above administrative regions covered to 1,500 within three years

GateUser-bd883c58 · 2026-04-11T02:50:02+00:00

Starbucks' collaboration with Boyu Investment will help deepen community connections in China, implement the "Thousand Stores, Thousand Faces" strategy, focus on upgrading products, expanding scenario-based stores, and simultaneously use AI as a smart avatar to enhance interactions and relationships between customers and various stores.

GateUser-bd883c58

2026-04-11 02:50:02

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Beijing News Shell Finance Report (Reporter Yan Xia) On April 8, the reporter learned that Starbucks global and Boyu Investment’s strategic partnership has been launched. After the joint venture, Starbucks China will focus on five core initiatives around the “a store tailored to every need” strategy: upgrading professional coffee, innovating high-quality products, expanding scenario-based store development, enabling partners to build “one store, one community,” and using AI to help build humanistic connections.

In terms of store expansion, Starbucks stores currently cover more than 1,000 county-level administrative regions, and it plans to expand to 1,500 or more county-level administrative regions in the next three years. “At the same time, while continuing to expand new business districts and demand in existing cities, even Shanghai—which already has more than 1,100 stores—still has new business districts that need to be developed,” Starbucks China said.

In terms of digital layout, Starbucks China plans to use AI as the CGO (Chief Growth Officer) and create a smart avatar for each store. The goal is to deeply root the brand in the community and stay close to customers, so that each store’s marketing needs can be better addressed. This will ensure that the relationship between customers and Starbucks is not only a relationship with the Starbucks brand, but also a relationship between customers and many different Starbucks stores.

Editor Yue Caizhou

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