In China’s battle of the lattes, Luckin Coffee keeps beating Starbucks
CNN
Luckin Coffee, the Chinese chain that became mired in a fraud scandal and was delisted from the Nasdaq four years ago, has reported a commanding sales lead over rival Starbucks in the important China market.
Luckin Coffee, the Chinese chain that became mired in a fraud scandal and was delisted from the Nasdaq four years ago, has reported a commanding sales lead over rival Starbucks in the important China market. In 2023, Luckin generated total net revenue of 24.9 billion yuan ($3.5 billion), up 87% from a year earlier, according to its financial results released on Friday. It didn’t break down its revenue by geography, but the vast majority of its sales come from China. Internationally, it has only 30 outlets in Singapore, the first of which debuted last March. Starbucks (SBUX), in comparison, reported total revenue of $3.05 billion in China for fiscal 2023 that ended October 1, according to a CNN calculation based on the company’s quarterly results. The Xiamen-based company said its unaudited net income for 2023 reached 2.85 million yuan ($401,000), compared to 488,246 yuan ($67,830) in 2022, it said. Luckin, which already calls itself China’s biggest coffee chain, says it had surpassed Starbucks in mainland China by number of outlets in 2019.
HED: Venezuela’s economy will be a mess for whoever runs it next
Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, has been flooded with sexual images of mainly women, many of them real people, by being prompted by users to “digitally undress” them and sometimes placing them in suggestive poses.
President Donald Trump made two extraordinarily unusual policy statements in rapid succession Wednesday that sent stocks sinking and raised serious questions about the limits of presidential power in a free-market economy.
Character.AI has agreed to settle multiple lawsuits alleging the artificial intelligence chatbot maker contributed to mental health crises and suicides among young people, including a case brought by Florida mother Megan Garcia.
Betting big on memestocks could pay off, at least for GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen. But a potentially huge payout hinges on a massive turnaround for the volatile video game retailer.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he intends to ban large institutional investors from buying additional single-family homes.
Finding a job continued to be a slog at the end of the year, new data shows: US businesses sought out fewer workers in November and hiring rates wilted even further.
Once again, Warner Bros. Discovery has chosen Netflix as its preferred suitor over Paramount.
Trump is running a private equity playbook on Venezuela
President Donald Trump said Tuesday night that Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States, to be sold at market value and with the proceeds controlled by the US.
President Donald Trump has spoken in unequivocal terms: US oil companies are headed back to Venezuela, they’ll spend the tens of billions of dollars required to restore the country’s energy infrastructure, and they’ll reap the potentially enormous rewards.
China has banned exports of some rare earth elements and other items to Japan that could be used for military purposes, straining already tense relations between the two countries following the Japanese prime minister’s recent remarks on Taiwan.
The American Dream has never felt further out of reach. And it’s not just because the house with the white-picket fence and the nanny to care for the children are unaffordable. They’re also, for many, unavailable.