Starbucks Corp said yesterday it would open its first store next month in Vietnam, seeking a foothold in the coffee-loving country as part of efforts to expand in Asia.
The communist country’s first Starbucks cafe will be in southern Ho Chi Minh City, the US beverage giant said in a joint statement with its local partner, Hong Kong’s Maxim Group.
“Vietnam is one of the most dynamic and exciting markets in the world and we are proud to add Vietnam as the 12th market across the China and Asia-Pacific region,” Starbucks China and Asia Pacific president John Culver said.
Starbucks has been targeting growth outside of the stagnant US market, opening thousands of stores in China and across the Asia-Pacific region over the past few years.
In October, it opened its first stores in India, in partnership with domestic giant Tata Global Beverages.
Unlike tea-drinking India, Vietnam — the world’s second-largest coffee producer — already has a strong local coffee culture with dozens of popular local chains and small coffee shops on nearly every street corner.
“We know coffee is a national pride for many Vietnamese and as such, we look forward to contributing and growing Vietnam’s already vibrant coffee industry,” Culver said in the statement.
Starbucks already purchases “notable” amounts of high-quality arabica coffee from Vietnam and is committed to buying more over the long term, according to the statement.
Culver said last month that Starbucks will have almost 4,000 stores in the Asia-Pacific region by the end of this year, including 1,000 in China.
Separately, Starbucks started rolling out a US$1 reusable plastic cup at its cafes from yesterday.
The Seattle-based coffee chain already gives customers a dime discount each time they bring in reusable cups for refills. Now it is hoping the new cups — which bear its logo and resemble its white paper cups — will increase the habit.
The cups were tested in 600 stores in the Pacific Northwest over the past few months and will be rolled out nationwide and in Canada.
In 2008, teh company had said it wanted to serve 25 percent of all drinks in reusable cups by 2015. That goal has since been reduced to 5 percent.
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
RSS