Nowwa Coffee's revenue reached 700 million to 800 million yuan in 2025, with a profit of approximately 60 million yuan | Exclusive

Author | Zhong Yixuan

Editor | Qiao Qian

36Kr has exclusively learned from multiple independent sources that Nowwa Coffee is expected to achieve a revenue of 700 to 800 million yuan and a profit of approximately 60 million yuan in 2025.

2025 is a year of rapid expansion for Nowwa Coffee. From over 1,200 stores at the end of 2024 to over 10,000 stores by the end of 2025, Nowwa Coffee has become the fourth coffee brand in China to reach the milestone of 10,000 stores.

Different from its competitors, most of Nowwa Coffee's stores adopt the in-store model. Li Lixu, a partner of Nowwa Coffee, publicly mentioned not long ago that currently 80% of Nowwa Coffee's stores are in-store stores, and about 20% are exclusive stores. The so - called in - store model means embedding the coffee business into locations such as convenience stores, Internet cafes, and gas stations. The partner stores provide the venue and staff, while Nowwa provides materials and equipment. The former earns additional income from the coffee business, and the latter makes a profit from the raw material price difference.

"For convenience stores, first, they don't need to purchase heavy - assets; second, they can use Nowwa's online traffic to sell coffee; third, for some chain convenience stores that originally had a coffee business but with poor sales, it is also a reuse of idle assets such as coffee machines," an industry insider told 36Kr. For Nowwa Coffee, the relatively low store - building cost has become a key factor in its breakthrough to the scale of 10,000 stores.

However, the core issue of the in - store model lies in quality control. Under the in - store model, Nowwa Coffee does not specifically hire staff but directly reuses the existing convenience store employees, who can start working after training.

Another coffee industry insider took Pac Coffee, a self - operated coffee brand of FamilyMart, as an example. FamilyMart's coffee only offers two categories: Americano and Latte. Coupled with the use of pre - made ice cups, for the staff, they only need to perform simple steps such as pouring milk and coffee liquid. "But Nowwa has more SKUs and also has fruit coffee products. When operated by convenience store staff, Nowwa requires them to remember more recipes. Moreover, Nowwa cannot directly manage the staff, so the risks of quality control and expiration are greater," he said.

It's not that Nowwa doesn't want to hire more staff, but the current cost structure doesn't allow it. Currently, Nowwa Coffee settles accounts with franchisees at a price of the beverage cost plus 2 yuan and pays a certain monthly rent. However, an informed source told 36Kr that "the monthly rent Nowwa pays to some chain convenience stores is very low, almost negligible."

In other words, franchisees earn a profit of 2 yuan per cup of coffee. A convenience store employee whose store cooperates with Nowwa told 36Kr that the daily coffee sales volume of his store is about 80 cups. Based on this level, it is not cost - effective for franchisees to hire an additional coffee staff. When reusing employees, once the order volume is concentrated, the staff often have difficulty taking care of everything. On social media, there are many comments about the inconsistent production standards of Nowwa Coffee.

For coffee brands, the in - store model is not a new topic. In 2024, Cotti Coffee also tried the in - store model and once announced an ambitious goal of opening 50,000 stores in three years. However, soon, due to shoddy store construction and random store locations, the in - store model caused a lot of controversy, and Cotti has currently suspended the recruitment for in - store franchisees.

The aforementioned coffee industry insider told 36Kr that although both Cotti and Nowwa adopt the in - store model, their different fates are mainly due to their different genes. "Cotti needs to complete brand upgrading, and the image confusion caused by the in - store model is a loss for it. But Nowwa Coffee is different. The in - store model is the one it has been trying since its inception," he said.

In fact, Nowwa Coffee has also wavered in its choice of the in - store model, but it quickly made a decision. In 2022, Nowwa slowed down the expansion of in - store stores and tried to expand through independent store franchising, but the result was not ideal. That was also the beginning of the 9.9 - yuan coffee war in China. Since then, the war has become more and more intense, and the entry ticket is too high. It is not easy for Nowwa to gain expansion opportunities from the sky - high subsidies and extremely low prices. It was not until the restart of the in - store model that Nowwa quickly broke through the scale of 10,000 stores.

Li Lixu, a partner of Nowwa Coffee, once said that compared with Japan and Taiwan, China, consumers in convenience stores have developed a mature consumption habit of coffee. Consumers are buying caffeine and convenience, which is category - based consumption. However, the consumer education of freshly - made coffee in China has been largely completed by brands such as Starbucks, and consumers are more brand - based consumers. This is also one of the reasons why convenience stores choose Nowwa instead of running their own coffee business.

In other words, Nowwa Coffee wants to seize the opportunity of brand - building for convenience - store coffee. However, to continue this story, Nowwa may face two problems. First, is the in - store model naturally contrary to the brand - building experience, making it difficult to build brand awareness, and users buy coffee incidentally rather than for the brand? Second, convenience stores in Japan are like infrastructure, accounting for more than 65% of the freshly - made coffee market share, ranking first. But in China, the main channels for coffee are still take - away stores, and convenience stores are just supplementary, so the ceiling may be limited. If Nowwa only enables convenience stores to earn an extra profit from a cup of coffee, then Nowwa Coffee may be more like a channel provider.