China’s top 2 bubble tea producers, Mixue and Guming are planning to raise up to US$1 billion and US$500 million respectively via IPO listing in Hong Kong.
Mixue Group originally submitted application in September 2022, seeking to raise about Rmb 6.5 billion (US$909.9 million) on Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Six months later, the IPO application was put on hold after China started to expand the registration-based IPO mechanism to all domestic stock exchanges. Mixue was said to suspend IPO plan due to Chinese regulator’s attempt to curb companies in certain sectors such as food and restaurant chains to list on the country’s main stock exchanges under the new mechanism, an effort to channel funding into strategic industries.
Mixue is committed to providing quality value-for-money freshly-made fruit drinks, tea drinks, ice cream and coffee to consumers, typically priced around US$1.00 per item. It has a network of 36,000 stores at home and abroad as of September 2023, including approximately 4,000 stores in 11 overseas markets.
During the 9 months ended September 2023, 5.8 billlion cups of drinks were sold through Mixue’s store network, making it China’s largest and the world’s 2nd largest freshly-made drinks maker, in terms of number of stores and cups sold.
Another player, Guming is China’s largest mid-priced freshly-made tea store brand and 2nd largest freshly made tea store brand across all price ranges. The store network boasts 9,001 stores as of December 2023. The figure made Guming one of the top 5 freshly-made beverage brands globally in terms of store count in 2023.
Mixue and Guming are not alone as they are just 2 out of six tea chains reportedly planning for Hong Kong IPO listing in 2024.
