The Chinese-style tea chain Auntea Jenny filed for IPO at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on 14 February. This marks the fourth milk tea brand waiting to be listed, after ChaPanda, Mixue Bingcheng and Goodme (Guming). Pundits are waiting to see who will become the second tea chain to go public after Nayuki, which was listed in Hong Kong last June. On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, the topic “Auntea Jenny submits listing application in Hong Kong” (#沪上阿姨在港递交上市申请#) gained 50.14 million views, ranking number 14 on the Hot Search list.
Established in 2013, Auntea Jenny has been growing steadily in the past three years. The tea chain’s revenue in the first 9 months of 2023 reached 2.54 billion RMB (352.85 million USD), increasing 54.1% year-on-year (YOY) and exceeded the whole of 2022. Net profit also grew 188.7% YOY for the first 9 months of 2023. The brand currently has 7,297 branches in over 300 cities around China, all franchised apart from 52 directly operated stores.
It has fewer branches compared to Mixue’s 36,000+ locations and Goodme who has 9,000. The similar 7,117 branch operation by ChaPanda, however, earned 4.2 billion RMB in 2022, nearly twice that of Auntea Jenny’s 2.20 billion RMB (305.61 million USD). Auntea seems to be trailing behind in comparison to the competition.
Auntea Jenny’s focus on cities and towns in “Tier 3” and below, as well as expanding in Northern China gives it an edge. The brand’s other strong suit is in diversification in both product and market segments. There are currently two sub-brands, including Jenny Coffee which focuses on coffee and a “light” version of Auntea Jenny that provides a more affordable version in lower-tier cities and towns. With high growth, especially in terms of profit and gross margin, which reached 31.2%, Auntea Jenny remains competitive in the Chinese tea arena.
