$7 billion in revenue, 31,000 stores, but the delivery bill is coming due
The numbers Luckin Coffee reported last week tell two stories at the same time. One sounds like the greatest success story in Chinese coffee history. The other sounds like an expensive problem.
The success story
Luckin generated annual revenue of 49.2 billion yuan, $7.1 billion, in 2025, up 43% year over year.
Net profit rose 22% to 3.6 billion yuan, $525 million.
8,708 new stores opened, bringing the total to 31,048.
160 international locations: 81 in Singapore, 70 in Malaysia, 9 in the United States.
Of the 31,048 locations, 20,234 are company operated, the rest run by franchise partners. That gives Luckin more stores than Starbucks worldwide.
For context: 4.1 billion freshly made drinks in one year. From June onward, monthly active customers exceeded 100 million for five consecutive months. Same store sales swung from minus 17% back into positive territory, averaging +7.5% for the year.
The problem: delivery is eating the profits
Q4 2025 tells a different story. Quarterly revenue rose 33% to 12.8 billion yuan, but profit dropped 39%.
The reason: a subsidy war between China’s delivery platforms Meituan and Ele.me starting in Q2 sharply increased delivery volumes in China. More customers ordered via app instead of buying in store.
Delivery costs surged to 1.6 billion yuan, up 94.5% year over year. Same store growth slowed to just 1.2% in Q4, down from 14.4% in Q3.
Why this matters
Luckin is living proof that China can build homegrown consumer brands at global scale.
But the Q4 numbers highlight the dilemma: growth in China’s hypercompetitive delivery market does not come for free. 2026 will be the year Luckin has to prove whether its international expansion can scale fast enough to offset margin erosion in its home market.
👉 Sources: Yicai Global, DealStreet Asia, Caixin
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