Luckin Coffee Opens 2,599 Stores as Same-Store Sales Fall 11%
Luckin Coffee opened a net 2,599 stores in the third quarter and increased revenue 17%, but sales at established company-operated stores fell 11.1%. The combination shows that the chain’s growth is being driven primarily by a larger footprint and more customers, not stronger revenue from comparable locations.
The Chinese coffee group ended September with 38,909 stores, up 7.2% in three months and 33.2% from a year earlier. Average monthly transacting customers reached 123.0 million, a record and 9.6% above the prior year.
Expansion is carrying the sales increase
Third-quarter measure | Reported | Change |
Net revenue | RMB17.89bn | +17.0% |
Total stores | 38,909 | +33.2% YoY |
Net new stores | 2,599 | +7.2% QoQ |
Same-store sales | Self-operated | -11.1% |
Monthly customers | 123.0m | +9.6% |
Operating margin | 15.4% | +3.8 pts |
Agrilinkage calculates that Luckin added roughly 28 net stores per day during the 92-day quarter. The network grew from 29,214 stores in September 2025 to 38,909 a year later, an increase of almost 9,700 locations.
That pace can increase system sales even when mature stores lose momentum. Total revenue reached RMB17.89 billion, while gross merchandise value rose 19.7% to RMB20.7 billion. Freshly brewed drinks contributed RMB12.44 billion, or 69.5% of total revenue.
The 11.1% decline in same-store sales is therefore the most important counterweight to the headline growth. Luckin said the comparison was affected by unusually high food-delivery subsidies in the prior-year period. Even so, comparable-store growth has weakened for three consecutive reported quarters, moving from minus 0.1% in the first quarter to minus 5.3% in the second and minus 11.1% in the third.
Pickup orders transformed the cost structure
Profitability improved sharply despite the comparable-store decline. Operating income increased 55.1% to RMB2.76 billion, and operating margin expanded 3.8 percentage points to 15.4%. Store-level operating profit at self-operated shops rose 55.5% to RMB3.02 billion.
The biggest cost movement came from delivery. Delivery expenses fell 38.1% to RMB1.79 billion as the order mix shifted toward pickup. That saving was large enough to offset rising costs elsewhere: materials increased 23.7%, store rent and operating costs rose 26.7%, and marketing spending climbed 30.0%.
This matters beyond Luckin. Mobile ordering can be commercially valuable even without delivery if stores are dense enough for convenient collection. A pickup-heavy model avoids a portion of platform commissions and last-mile expense, but it also raises the importance of site selection, queue management and production speed.
More stores can hide weaker unit economics
System growth and store productivity should be read separately. A chain can report rising revenue, customers and operating profit while existing locations sell less than they did a year earlier. If new stores draw customers away from nearby shops, network expansion may also contribute to the comparable-store pressure.
Luckin’s filing does not quantify cannibalization, so it would be wrong to treat it as the confirmed cause. The company attributes much of the comparison to prior-year delivery subsidies. The trend to watch is whether same-store sales stabilize as that comparison normalizes, or whether rapid unit growth continues to dilute sales per location.
Partnership-store revenue increased 11.7% to RMB4.24 billion. Within that total, material sales were RMB2.81 billion, royalties and profit sharing were RMB580.8 million, and equipment sales were RMB214.5 million. Those figures show how expansion creates revenue not only from cups sold to customers but also from supplying and servicing partners.
What comes next
The central question is whether Luckin can maintain profitability while continuing to add stores at this speed. A slower opening pace could expose the underlying comparable-store trend more clearly; continued expansion could preserve group growth but increase the risk of overlapping catchment areas and higher fixed costs.
The company also approved a new $500 million share-repurchase authorization after using $391 million of an earlier $500 million program by the end of September. That signals confidence in cash generation, but it does not resolve the operational question of how much demand each store can sustain.
Related reading: see Agrilinkage’s analysis of Keurig Dr Pepper and coffee pricing, Westlife Foodworld’s restaurant expansion and recent U.S. coffee-price pressure.
Sources and methodology
This article uses Luckin Coffee’s unaudited third-quarter results released on 3 November 2026. Agrilinkage calculated year-on-year store growth from the company’s reported September 2025 and September 2026 store counts and divided net openings by the 92 days in the quarter. Same-store sales follow Luckin’s definition for qualifying self-operated locations.
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