By selling Ice Lemonade priced less than $1… See the previous post: A Sweet Lemon Tale — How MiXue Dominates China’s Lemonade Scene via Supply Chain
Mixue - known for its cheap drinks and red-cloaked Snow King mascot - raised 444 million USD in an initial public offering by selling 17 million shares in the deal at a fixed price of HKD 202.5 each. Reuters.
Founded in 1997 as a small ice shop in Zhengzhou, Henan province, Mixue has grown into a franchise giant with over 45,000 stores globally by September 2024, surpassing Starbucks’ 40,576 stores worldwide.
Mixue is often seen as China’s largest chain of iced drinks, milk tea, and ice cream. However, it operates more like a raw-material supplier than a traditional beverage brand, selling food materials, packaging, and equipment to thousands of franchisees, according to its filings.
Nearly all of its stores are run by franchisees, unlike Starbucks, which operates 53% of its stores directly.
In the first nine months of 2024, Mixue reported a net profit of 3.49 billion yuan, up from 3.19 billion yuan in the same period the previous year, according to its IPO filings.
($1 = 7.2913 Chinese yuan renminbi, 7.7774 Hong Kong dollars)