In America, Starbucks is ubiquitous. New Starbucks shops continue to pop up on every other urban street corner, and on any given weekday morning commute, it’s likely that you’ll run into at least one or two caffeine fiends with the familiar mermaid-branded cup in hand. With over 11,000 Starbucks already in America and Canada and another 6,000 locations dotting the globe, Starbucks is looking to reach new markets. Vietnam is one of them.
Last month, Starbucks announced a business reorganization initiative to better prepare for its global expansion to the Asia Pacific and other parts of the world. Starbucks hopes to open another 600 stores internationally by 2012 and enter the Vietnamese market by 2013.
But how successful do you suppose the coffee giant will be in Vietnam? While ma-and-pa cafes will probably still be the preferred drinking destination of most Vietnamese for the time being, domestic chain coffee shops, like Trung Nguyen Coffee and Highlands Coffee, have also become regular sights.
Furthermore, at the same time Starbucks is expanding to Vietnam, Vietnamese-style coffee has also grown in popularity in America. Whereas before the Vietnamese-style concoction’s availiabity was limited to your Vietnamese American ethnic hubs; now, thanks to word of mouth and favorable media coverage, it’s not uncommon to see Vietnamese coffee as a distinct menu offering at hip-ish cafes and eateries.
So now, in the race for market dominance, who’s going to take it? Will Starbucks storm Vietnam just as Vietnamese coffee becomes a la mode in America? Where do your taste bud loyalties remain?
It’ll be interesting to see if Starbucks adapts itself to compete with brands that already cater to the local Vietnamese palate, or if the appeal of the American brand alone is enough to cause trepidation in the Vietnamese businesses.
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