Starbucks Wide Open for China Business with New JV 星巴克在云南建合资厂

By newsdoug on July 18, 2011

Starbucks plants seeds in China with new joint venture Less than a year after announcing its first major initiative to nurture China’s domestic coffee-growing sector, Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) has come back with announcement of a more substative joint venture to buy coffee beans from the country for use both at home and abroad. (company announcement) This move is clearly as much about public relations as it is about coffee from southwest China’s Yunnan province, which undoubtedly has potential to compete with some of the world’s other top growing regions but is more significant because it carries the “made in China” label. Let’s take a look at the numbers: even with its current aggressive expansion plans, Starbucks, a relative latecomer to China, will have a relatively modest 1,500 stores in the country by 2015, less than a tenth of its current global store count. By comparison, Yum Brands (NYSE: YUM), parent of the KFC and Pizza Hut chains, now derives a full one-third of its global revenue from China and counts the country as its second largest market after the US. (previous post) Anyone who does the math will see that obviously Starbucks sees lots of room for growth in China, especially if it can take a cue from Yum and McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) and localize its products to better suit China’s tea-drinking culture and develop more products at a middle price range to meet demand from less affluent smaller cities. Having a coffee-buying base in Yunnan could help to lower prices by buying a more local product, and would also be a strong selling point to Chinese eager to see their higher-end products like home-grown coffee compete on the global stage. On the whole, this joint venture looks like a good, cost effective way for Starbucks to tell China it’s committed to the country for the long run, as it seeks to replicate the success of Yum and McDonald’s in this fast growing market.

Bottom line: Starbucks’ new China joint venture underscores its commitment to the country, which could easily become its second largest global market over the next decade.

星巴克<SBUX.O>最近宣布，将成立合资厂，从中国购买咖啡豆，供应国内外。毫无疑问，云南有与其他咖啡豆种植区竞争的潜力，这一举动不仅仅是公关需要，更重要的是，在云南购买咖啡豆意味着“中国制造”。让我们看看这组数字：虽然星巴克的扩张计划野心勃勃，但在2015年前，星巴克在中国的店铺也将总共只有约1,500家，这还不及其在全球店铺数量的十分之一。相比之下，肯德基和必胜客的母公司百胜<YUM.N>收入的三分之一来自中国，并将中国视为其仅次于美国的第二大市场。任何明眼人都能看出来，星巴克在中国看到了很大的增长潜力，尤其是如果借鉴百胜和麦当劳的经验，将其产品本土化，以适应中国的饮茶文化，并开发更多中端价位的产品，满足不那麽富裕的较小城市的需求，发展潜力更是很大。在云南成立合资公司，购买当地产品，有助於降低其产品价格，对於那些希望看到本土咖啡进军全球市场的中国人来说，这也是一个有力的卖点。总的来说，对於想复制百胜和麦当劳在中国市场成功的星巴克来说，这个合资公司看似是星巴克向中国承诺致力於长期开辟该国市场的经济又有效的途径。

一句话：星巴克在中国成立新合资公司，意味着星巴克承诺要长期开辟中国市场，这可能让中国在未来十年成为其在全球的第二大市场。