价格战刚死，万店互殴，谁才是咖啡连锁“真老三”？The price war has just died, and thousands of stores are fighting each other. Who is the "real third" of the coffee chain?

Author | Blue Shark Consumer Zhang Erhe

The coffee brand's three-year extreme price war finally signaled a collective decline in early 2026——

Most of Kudi's product prices have returned to the range of 11.9 to 16.9 yuan, with some core products experiencing a price increase of 30% to 60%. Luckin Coffee has also narrowed its applicability range to 9.9 yuan earlier. The industry consensus has been formed - low price competition is unsustainable, and quality and efficiency are the real pillars that support brands to go further.

However, the end of the price war does not necessarily mean a decrease in the intensity of competition. On the contrary, when "who is cheaper" is no longer the only winner, the competition among coffee brands is shifting towards deeper dimensions - brand momentum, product quality, franchise ecology, and business model sustainability. At this turning point, two brands that almost simultaneously entered the "Wandian Club" - Lucky Coffee and Novacoffee - are launching a challenge to determine who is the "third in the industry".

Two paths, at the same table

2025 is a year of rapid expansion for the thousands of coffee shops in China's coffee industry. After Luckin Coffee and Kudi Coffee, Lucky Coffee announced in November of that year that its stores had exceeded 10000, becoming the third coffee brand in China to have 10000 stores; Just one month later, Novacoffee officially announced that it had entered the threshold of ten thousand stores. From then on, Luckin Coffee, Kudi Coffee, Lucky Coffee, and Novacoffee formed a new situation of quadrupedal dominance.

But on the road to Wandian, Lucky Coffee and Nawa Coffee chose completely different paths.

Lucky Coffee relies on the mature supply chain and franchise system of its parent company, Meixue Ice City. According to data from Narrow Gate Restaurant, Lucky Coffee's stores in third tier and lower tier cities account for nearly 70%, with its main market penetrating deep into the sinking market. In just over 10 months, Lucky Coffee expanded from approximately 4500 stores at the beginning of 2025 to a scale of 10000 stores, demonstrating the profound ability of the Meixue system in scale replication.

Novacoffee has taken a completely different curve. By 2025, the number of Novacoffee stores has increased by approximately 8000, with the highest monthly store opening reaching 1800. Founded in 2019, Novartis' core team originated from Ele.me and has taken the "store in store" light asset model as its strategic direction from the beginning.

The so-called "shop in shop" refers to embedding a coffee service module in existing consumer scenarios such as convenience stores, hotels, and internet cafes, with Novartis providing equipment, supply chain, and brand, and partners providing venue and manpower. According to Shandong Business Daily, as of December 11, 2025, the total number of Nuowa Coffee stores has exceeded 10000, of which 7000 are franchise stores, accounting for 70%. More than 90% of these 7000 franchise stores are jointly operated with convenience stores, with core partners including Meiyijia, Youke, etc., forming a joint venture network covering major cities across the country.

Two completely different paths have brought two brands to the same table.

Marketing upgrade

After accumulating a scale of thousands of stores, the two brands will launch a series of marketing actions in 2026 to promote "brand upgrading" and replace price wars as a powerful tool for customer acquisition.

Lucky Coffee uses a dual endorsement matrix of "traffic+texture" to achieve brand transition. In April 2026, Lucky Coffee officially announced Tony Leung Chiu wai and Dilraba Dilraba as brand spokespersons - one is the Cannes Film Emperor who has been a legend in the Chinese film industry for 20 years, and the other is a top tier actress with billions of social media views.

The cleverness of this combination lies in the clear division of labor: Dilraba serves as the "Global Ambassador of Zhenxuan Coffee", driving short-term sales through fan economy. On the day of the official announcement, multiple Reba small cards, cup covers, handbags and other accessories are simultaneously launched, binding the products with celebrity accessories and directly driving the store's check-in rate and repurchase rate; Tony Leung Chiu wai serves as the "brand spokesperson", not with the purpose of promoting products, but with "quality" as the brand endorsement, which perfectly fits the core product upgrade mainline of Lucky Coffee in 2026- "three freshness and one appearance" - fresh beans, fresh milk, fresh fruits, and on-site production.

One is responsible for attracting new customers, and the other is responsible for building a solid brand. The combination of "top tier+Best Actor" is essentially filling the cognitive gap between "cheap" and "quality" with marketing resources. As stated by Pan Guofei, CEO of Lucky Coffee China, in 2026, the company will focus on single store revenue growth with scale development as a supplement, shifting from scale expansion to quality cultivation, and achieving brand appreciation without price increases as the core proposition.

To this end, Lucky Coffee plans to invest 300 million yuan in brand marketing, covering various forms such as top tier endorsements, cross industry collaborations, short drama placements, IP collaborations, and cross-border breakthroughs. At the same time, 200 million yuan will be invested in store equipment upgrades and technical support. From spokespersons to store space experience, from packaging design to mini program interaction, a systematic brand visual upgrade is unfolding.

The marketing strategy of Novacoffee is more characterized by breaking boundaries and a sense of technology. In April 2026, Novacoffee and Qinglang Intelligent jointly created the world's first humanoid robot caf é, which was officially exhibited at the 2026 China Humanoid Robot Ecology Conference in Shanghai. The humanoid robot XMAN-R1 completed the entire process from placing an order to making and picking up cups as a "specially appointed barista".

This is not a simple brand event, but a commercial validation of incorporating embodied intelligence into the real operation system of chain coffee. The Operations Director of Novacoffee stated that in the future, humanoid baristas will mainly engage in repetitive and standardized tasks such as beverage production, allowing employees to focus more on high-value services such as taste recommendations and demand communication.

Prior to this, Novacoffee also collaborated with the popular historical drama "Chasing the Jade" to launch co branded cup sets, pearl postcards, customized scrolls and other peripherals, closely following the popularity of the drama to create an immersive experience for young consumers of "watching the drama while drinking coffee". Earlier, Novah had collaborated with young IPs such as "Double Pamish", "Eternal Love", and "Miracle Warmth". On the day of its own trendy game Wakuku's launch, the daily cup volume of participating stores was close to a thousand cups, and the joint package was sold out ahead of schedule. The efficiency of member recruitment increased by over 1100% month on month.

If the marketing of Lucky Coffee is to "borrow momentum from above" and enhance brand quality and trust through top spokespersons; So the marketing of Novacoffee is to "break through new barriers", using technology collaboration and IP cross-border to continuously create topics and freshness among young consumer groups. Behind the two paths lies the precise judgment of the two major brands on their own positioning and consumer groups.

Franchise Ecology

If marketing is the "face" of a brand facing consumers, then the franchise system is the "inside" of a brand facing its partners. In the process of shifting from price internalization to value cultivation, the health of the franchise model directly determines whether the brand can go far.

The key words for Lucky Coffee's franchise strategy are "heavy investment, deep empowerment". At the 2025 performance briefing, Meixue Group clearly stated that it will comprehensively increase its investment in Lucky Coffee in 2026, with the core idea of "improving quality and efficiency". Specifically, the company will slow down the pace of opening stores and focus on improving the operational quality of existing stores to achieve double-digit year-on-year growth in average store revenue.

On the product side, Lucky Coffee adheres to the principle of "three freshness and one appearance" and comprehensively upgrades the quality of core raw materials such as coffee, milk, fruit, and sugar - upgrading room temperature milk and coconut milk to low-temperature fresh milk and fresh coconut milk, introducing HPP process fresh fruit, and exploring coffee beans with shorter shelf life. According to pilot data from Jinan and Heze, the daily average cup volume of stores has achieved double-digit growth after the upgrade of fresh beans and fresh milk.

The essence of this strategy is that Lucky Coffee has shifted from "running a horse to conquer land" to "cultivating meticulously", transforming the supply chain advantage of its parent company, Meixue Bingcheng, into the single store profitability of franchisees.

However, this strategic shift is not smooth sailing. According to a report by Food Reference, in mid February of this year, an open letter titled "To Mr. Zhang: Lucky Coffee Franchisees, Can't Stand Up!" was widely circulated in Lucky Coffee and even the entire tea drinking industry. In the letter, he said that he had been with the Meixue Group for seven or eight years, holding more than ten Meixue Ice Cities and more than ten Lucky Coffee stores; Now it is also on the brink of losing control of emotions, let alone those inexperienced "novice" franchisees.

Faced with difficulties, Meixue Group announced that it will invest 500 million yuan in 2026 to support Lucky Coffee franchisees, including 300 million yuan for brand marketing and 200 million yuan for store equipment upgrades and technical support. According to the data from the Lucky Coffee Cooperation Center, starting from February 2025, newly opened store franchisees can enjoy a reduction of first-year franchise fees, management fees, and training fees, totaling a discount of 17000 yuan. Whether this investment can truly reverse the operating situation of franchisees is a question that Lucky Coffee must answer on the road to "improving quality and efficiency".

The franchise strategy of Novacoffee revolves around "light assets, wide coverage". The franchise threshold for its in store model is extremely low - the official claim is that the initial investment is within 50000 yuan, but the actual cost is even lower: chain store owners only need a deposit of 10000 yuan plus 6000 yuan for material costs, and equipment and construction are provided free of charge by the headquarters, without the need for additional rent and manpower, starting at 16000 yuan.

Compared to the franchise cost of starting at 127000 yuan for Lucky Coffee, the attractiveness of Novas is self-evident. In terms of profit distribution, Novartis adopts the principle of "prioritizing the protection of profits for retail partners and franchisees, and retaining reasonable profits for brand owners". Tech Planet has reported that Nova franchisees share profits by cup, with a cooperation period of generally two to three years. Selling one cup in the store can earn a net profit of two yuan, and after recouping the cost, it will be one yuan per cup.

The core advantage of this model is that it turns coffee business into "incremental revenue" of partners - convenience stores, hotels and other scenarios have already borne rent and labor costs, and every cup of coffee sold is almost an incremental profit. According to Novacoffee, for every 100 cups of coffee sold in a convenience store, it can drive the sale of 20 to 30 high gross profit products.

Li Lixu, partner and senior vice president of Novacoffee, told the media, "Independent coffee shops need to reach a daily cup volume of 250 to 300 cups to make a profit, but for partners, there are almost no fixed costs in store. The machinery, equipment, and decoration are invested by Novacoffee, and the venue and labor costs are already borne by the partners

But the other side of the 'light' mode is the dilution of brand control. Currently, over 80% of Novartis' stores are in store stores, with limited brand exposure and limited consumer perception - "opened 10000? How come I've never heard of it before?" has become a real reaction from many consumers. On social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, roast about "plastic bags for packaging", "tastes like water" and "cups are not authentic" often appear.

Quality control, standardized management, and vague brand awareness are the "growing pains" that Novacoffee must face after scaling up.

Summary

In the past three years, the speed of expansion has directly defined the brand's hierarchy of seats. Whoever can lower prices and open stores faster will be able to seize market share. According to data from Narrow Gate Restaurant, approximately 68400 new coffee stores were opened nationwide in the past year, with a net growth of only about 16700. The huge difference between the number of new stores and net growth reveals the high elimination rate in the industry: while nearly 5 new stores opened, about 3 old stores left. This data clearly indicates that the marginal benefits of relying solely on scale expansion have sharply declined, and the growth engine of the coffee industry is shifting from "incremental expansion" to "stock refinement", which tests operational skills more.

In the new stage, the core elements of competition are undergoing fundamental shifts. When Luckin Coffee's annual revenue reaches 49.2 billion yuan and its stores exceed 30000, and Kudi's stores exceed 18000, latecomer brands relying solely on scale and price are no longer able to shake the pattern and must find their true ecological niche.

The advantage of lucky coffee is that it is backed by a big tree. The supply chain system, franchise management experience, and capital strength of Meixue Ice City provide it with sufficient resource depth in improving quality and efficiency. The path it chooses is "boutique parity" - gradually narrowing the gap between "cheap" and "quality" in consumers' minds through raw material upgrades, brand marketing, and store experience optimization without significant price increases.

The store in store mode of Nova Coffee has enabled it to achieve an amazing expansion speed at a very low marginal cost, and its Internet gene has also given the brand a first mover advantage in digital operation and delivery channels. According to data from Narrow Gate Restaurant, the per capita consumption of Novacoffee is close to 17 yuan, making it the highest priced among the three giants. This also indicates that its product premium has strong support and its profit margin is better than the pure low price route.

But both brands also face their own challenges: what Lucky Coffee needs to answer is: how to digest the cost increase brought by "improving quality and efficiency" under the pricing anchor of 6.6 yuan? Can the survival anxiety of franchisees be truly alleviated by the 500 million yuan support plan?

What Novacoffee needs to answer is: how to build an undiluted brand awareness in the "shop in shop" model? How to maintain the bottom line of quality control above the scale of ten thousand stores? When convenience store owned coffee brands rise, where are the differentiation barriers of Novartis?

This is a competition without standard answers. After the price war recedes, the outcome of the third round of competition in the industry does not depend on who runs faster, but on who walks more steadily. This is the true "upgrade" path for Chinese coffee brands.