Starbucks in Japan

Starbucks picked Japan as an ideal market for its first overseas expansion project owing to the fact that Japan was among the largest coffee importers in the world. With a strategic marketing plan, Starbucks in Japan has managed to become one of the popular coffee chains in the country.

The Asian coffee market has always been complicated due to the region’s millennial love for tea and the traditional rules foreign companies have to follow. From the moment Starbucks opened its doors in Japan in 1996, the Seattle based coffee giant has used strategies that target the Japanese coffee consumers. Despite these restrictions, Starbucks has managed to grow in Japan and now has over 1600 stores with majority of them in Tokyo. In this article, we will look at the distribution of Starbucks in Japan and the potential competitors of the coffee chain.

Starbucks stores in Japan by region

Region

Number of Starbucks stores

Percentage (%) share of total Starbucks in Japan (1630)

Tokyo

317

19.45%

Kanagawa

199

12.21%

Osaka

178

10.92%

Chiba

164

10.06%

Aichi

92

5.64%

Saitama

63

3.87%

Fukuoka

48

2.94%

Hyogo

48

2.94%

Ibaraki

35

2.15%

Hokkaido

35

2.15%

Kyoto

33

2.02%

Shizuoka

30

1.84%

Miyagi

29

1.78%

Tochigi

27

1.66%

Hiroshima

23

1.41%

Okinawa

21

1.29%

Gunma

21

1.29%

Nagano

19

1.17%

Mie

16

0.98%

Shiga

14

0.86%

Gifu

13

0.80%

Okayama

12

0.74%

Niigata

12

0.74%

Aomori

11

0.67%

Nara

11

0.67%

Yamanashi

10

0.61%

Ishikawa

10

0.61%

Ehime

10

0.61%

Kumamoto

10

0.61%

Fukushima

10

0.61%

Saga

9

0.55%

Toyama

9

0.55%

Kagawa

8

0.49%

Akita

8

0.49%

Yamagata

8

0.49%

Iwate

8

0.49%

Nagasaki

8

0.49%

Wakayama

7

0.43%

Oita

7

0.43%

Fukui

6

0.37%

Yamaguchi

6

0.37%

Kagoshima

5

0.31%

Tottori

4

0.25%

Shimane

4

0.25%

Kochi

4

0.25%

Tokushima

4

0.25%

Miyazaki

4

0.25%

Number of Starbucks stores in Japan from 2013- 2022

Year

Number of Stores

2013

1,000

2014

1,060

2015

1,073

2016

1,140

2017

1,218

2018

1,286

2019

1,379

2020

1,464

2021

1,546

2022

1,630

Starbucks Major Competitors in Japan

Competitor

Number of Stores

Market Share

Starbucks

1630

48%

Doutor

1068

24%

Tully’s

700

8%

Pronto

300

7%

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