Philippine fast food and convenience restaurant group Jollibee Foods, which recently opened its first store in 2005, is struggling to make ends meet in Vietnam. With its traditional Jollibee fast food brand along with Highlands Coffee, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Vietnam and Pho 24, only Highlands Coffee is profitable, while the other three chains have been losing money for years. Jolibee Vietnam plans to have 300 stores in the country by 2020, but so far has only 150, less than its competitors KFC from the US and Lotteria from Japan. company…
Philippine fast food and convenience restaurant group Jollibee Foods, which recently opened its first store in Vietnam in 2005, is struggling to make ends meet in Vietnam.
With its traditional Jollibee fast-food brand along with Highlands Coffee, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Vietnam and Pho 24, only Highlands Coffee is profitable, while the other three chains have been losing money for years.
Jolibee Vietnam plans to have 300 stores in the country by 2020, but so far has only 150, less than its competitors KFC from the US and Lotteria from Japan. The company lost 43.9 billion dong ($1.9 million) last year.
Pho related to the Philippines is not very appealing in Vietnam
Pho 24, which sells traditional Vietnamese rice noodle soup, has been struggling to make a profit after nearly 20 years of existence. Once upon a time, it targeted 1,000 stores, but now there are only 22, mostly in Ho Chi Minh City. This brand alone will lose 89.4 billion VND in 2021.
After 14 years in Vietnam, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is in even worse shape, with only six branches in Ho Chi Minh City. Its prices are twice as high as Highlands Coffee, and its branches are mostly located in large malls. The company lost VND26 billion to VND29 billion annually in the past four years.
Highland Coffee Chain Makes Up for Someone Else’s Loss
Meanwhile, Highlands Coffee has been profitable in seven of the past eight years. The chain crossed the Rp 1 trillion revenue mark in 2017 and doubled it to over Rp 2 trillion in two years. In addition to the VND19 billion loss due to Covid-19 last year, Highlands Coffee has made an annual profit of between VND55 billion and VND100 billion over the past four years, making up for the losses of its sister brands. The chain now has 525 branches in Vietnam and the Philippines.
