After WanDian, Lucky Coffee announces a slowdown in expansion: plans to invest 500 million yuan to boost visibility.

Ask AI · Why did Lucky Coffee shift to deep quality focus after reaching the 10,000-store scale?

By | Bai Xue

Edited by | Liu Peng

After running past 10,000 outlets, Lucky Coffee chose to press the “accelerator.”

On March 24, Mi Xue Group released its 2025 annual earnings announcement and held an earnings briefing. The meeting revealed that in 2026, Lucky Coffee will shift from scale expansion to operating quality, planning to invest about 500 million yuan. This includes 300 million yuan for brand marketing and 200 million yuan for store equipment upgrades and technical support.

This strategic shift took place after Lucky Coffee completed a key milestone. In 2025, Lucky Coffee’s global store count surpassed 10,000, becoming the only 10,000-store-scale brand in China focused on the “affordable freshly ground coffee” segment. That same year, it also entered the Malaysia and Thailand markets in succession, taking steps toward internationalization.

However, after achieving scale, how to realize healthy operations has become a new課题 facing Lucky Coffee.

In response, Pan Guofei, Chief Executive Officer of Lucky Coffee China, said at the earnings briefing that in 2026, the company will “focus mainly on single-store revenue growth and use scale development as a secondary driver,” steadily moving forward. At the same time, it will continue to strengthen its market layout in top-tier cities.

On the marketing front, Lucky Coffee will adopt methods such as signing top-tier brand ambassadors, cross-industry partnerships, short-drama placements, IP collaborations, and cross-border attempts to break through, aiming to fill the shortcomings it previously had in brand communication.

When it comes to product ingredients, multiple executives, including Zhang Yuan, the newly appointed CEO of Mi Xue Group, repeatedly mentioned the term “Zhenxian Pure.” It is reported that in 2026, Mi Xue Group has planned strategic investments totaling about 1.8 to 2.0 billion yuan, with 1.4 billion yuan used for a deep overhaul of the domestic supply chain—“fresh beans, fresh milk, and fresh fruit” will be used on a wider scale.

This change has already seen preliminary validation.

In March this year, Lucky Coffee piloted the introduction of cold-chain fresh cow’s milk with a shelf life of just 19 days in Jinan and Heze, as well as products made from fresh coffee beans with a shelf life of 60 days. In the pilot cities, the average daily cup volume per store increased by double digits compared with other cities.

Next, Lucky Coffee plans to carry out comprehensive upgrades to core ingredients such as coffee beans, milk sources, and fruit juices, following the product principle of “three fresh items, one made on site” (fresh beans, fresh milk, fresh fruit, and on-site preparation).

However, whether the above layout can meet expectations in 2026 remains to be tested by the market.

On one hand, competition in the freshly ground coffee segment continues to intensify, and multiple brands are seeking a balance among quality, pricing, and value.

On the other hand, improving single-store profitability for franchisees involves multiple variables such as site selection, operations, and consumer demand. It is not something that can be guaranteed by investing resources alone.

Lucky Coffee has shifted from expansion to deep cultivation with a clear direction, but the execution-level challenges cannot be underestimated either.