Leading sportswear brand Li-Ning has started its own freshly-brewed coffee business has made it a new contender to the competitive on-premise coffee sector, but it’s also left a question mark on whether such a crossover will work.
The sports brand has recently applied to register its brand as “Ning Coffee” and has already operated coffee services in Beijing, Xiamen of Fujian province and Zhanjiang of Guangdong province.
Most of its coffee businesses are expected to be included inside its brick-and-mortar sportswear stores, which are numbered at more than 7,000.
If adding coffee into its sportswear stores, the estimated maximum scale of “Ning Coffee” could be larger than the country’s biggest coffee chains, given that Starbucks China has more than 5,500 stores and Luckin Coffee sits at around 6,000 stores.
Li-Ning’s ambition to cash in from the coffee business can be traced back to 2013 when the company rolled out apparel that is made of coffee carbon fibers for its warmth and ability to be environmentally friendly.
