Nearly a month ago, Starbucks Vietnam officially opened a new store in Cam Ranh city of the south-central province of Khanh Hoa, marking a new milestone with 125 stores in 16 cities and provinces nationwide. The Cam Ranh store also concluded the chain’s continuous expansion in 2024, following new stores in Sapa, Bac Ninh, Thanh Hoa, and Dalat. Some new Starbucks stores are located in pre-urban areas, contrary to the initial strategy of focusing on major cities, where there is potential to develop more additional stores.

Chi Nguyen, senior manager and marketing of Starbucks Vietnam, stated that despite facing many challenges in 2024, it still achieved its business plan.

“We opened 20 new stores in 2024 and successfully replicated the model of one store, one city,” Nguyen said. “Starbucks prioritises business efficiency, and the reason we continue to expand throughout Vietnam is because the pioneering stores have yielded very positive results,” she said.

To prepare for the new strategy, the American brand has made long-term preparations. At the end of 2023, Starbucks appointed a Vietnamese CEO and localised part of the menu by introducing salted coffee, coconut coffee, milk tea, and upcoming drip coffee.

While acknowledging the challenge of the development strategy of opening one store in one city, Nguyen stated that Starbucks will be present in more than 16 cities and provinces in 2025, focusing on tourist cities or other areas with high demand.

“We do not set a goal to be present in all localities, but we will open more stores in a province if there is indeed additional demand,” Nguyen added. “The growth rate in 2025 will certainly not be lower than that of 12 per cent for 2024.”

Similar to Starbucks, the coffee and beverage chain Highlands Coffee has also introduced a surprising strategy by starting to test the mini cabin coffee model next to gas stations in late December. Compared to investing in a traditional store, opening a coffee cabin with low initial investment costs, flexibility in choosing locations, and serving take-away needs has allowed Highlands Coffee to penetrate niche markets, save operating costs, and still expand brand coverage.

In fact, this is not the first time Highlands Coffee has implemented a take-away store model. In mid-2021, this beverage chain also attracted attention when launching coffee kiosks near office buildings, intersections, and busy streets. However, the coffee kiosks were only tested by Highlands Coffee for a short period and quietly disappeared soon after.

According to the financial report released by Jollibee Foods in the Philippines, the owner of the Highlands Coffee chain in Vietnam, announced at the end of last December, the brand’s new opening rate reached 13.9 per cent.

By the end of 2024, the Highlands Coffee chain had around 830 stores in Vietnam and the Philippines, with up to 300 new stores opened in the 2023-2024 period. As many as 26 Highlands Coffee stores were launched in the third quarter of 2024 alone, averaging nearly one coffee shop opening per day.

According to the Best F&B Brand Rankings 2024 released by market researchers Decision Lab in January, five beverage chains (Highlands Coffee, Trung Nguyen Legend, Phuc Long Coffee & Tea, The Coffee House, and Starbucks) were ranked among the top 10 most beloved food and beverage (F&B) brands.

The three domestic chains in the list are all pursuing unique strategies to increase their market share. In November 2024, Phuc Long appointed Patricia Marques, former CEO of Starbucks Vietnam, as its new CEO, with the expectation of upgrading service quality and redesigning the chain stores in a modern style with creative spaces to enhance customer experience.

At its annual general shareholders’ meeting last year, Masan Group CEO Danny Le announced that Phuc Long plans to expand into the international market after successfully testing two stores in the United States.

“The chain is aggressively pushing forward with the expansion strategy aimed at increasing market share in the F&B industry. In the upcoming year, Phuc Long will focus on exploring major cities under the central government such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Danang,” Le said.

Phuc Long currently has 176 stores and is present in 28 localities. The third-quarter 2024 report from Masan Group, the owner of Phuc Long, showed that the brand achieved revenue of $17.7 million, an increase of nearly 13 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The Trung Nguyen Legend Group is also operating under two different models. While the high-end Trung Nguyen Legend coffee chain has 106 stores nationwide, the franchising model Trung Nguyen E-Coffee has reached a scale of 800 stores, including four stores in the US and 21 stores in China.

In 2024, Trung Nguyen Legend introduced a new version of the Trung Nguyen E-Coffee model with space, product system, and menu. Trung Nguyen Legend Group hopes the new model will flourish in 2025 with plans to penetrate markets such as Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Dubai, and many European and Southeast Asian countries.

The Coffee House may be falling behind in the expansion race. From 150 stores at the end of 2022, The Coffee House now only has 94 stores by the end of 2024, after stores that were once considered key locations in Danang and Can Tho had to close down.