Starbucks VS Costa

 

Have you already drunk one of the 5000 possible drink combinations at Starbucks?Starbucks is a coffee bar, a kind of „Mac Do of coffee“. This famous US cofee brand owns stores all over the world and opened its first store in France in January 2004 in Paris.           

Recently Starbucks has encountered a stong rival in expanding its China business. This rival is Costa, a brand name of coffee founded by two Italian brothers Sergio Costa and Bruno Costa in London in 1971. Costa opened its first store in China in Shanghai in December 2006 and want to sweep across China.What is different from Starbucks’ American characteristics is that Costa will bring into China the Italian noble flavor combined with Chinese local preferences.

Currently Costa has opened 515 stores in Britain and will expand to Japan and South Korea later in 2007. Therefore we can forecast that Costa and Starbucks will compete in China and Asia-Pacific Region with utmost efforts.