Punthai Coffee Co, the operator of Punthai Coffee, has set its sights on increasing the number of its coffee shops to reach 5,000 over the next five years, up from 300 shops last year.
At least 300 new shops would be opened this year, with 40-45% of them being invested by the company's franchisees, while the remainder would be handled directly by the firm, according to Pitak Ratchakitprakarn, the company's managing director.
"The company plans to open 4,400 new Punthai Coffee shops between 2023 and 2027, bringing the total to 5,000 shops by the end of 2027. Of the total, as many as 80% will be invested by franchisees."
According to Mr Pitak, each Punthai Coffee shop requires an investment of 1.2 million baht.
"There's still a huge potential to expand coffee business now that coffee consumption in Thailand is only 300 cups per year, compared to 400 cups in Japan and 1,000 cups in Europe," he said, adding that consumption of out-of-home coffee is estimated to be worth 27 billion baht in 2021, with the figure expected to 28 billion baht in 2022. The overall out-of-home coffee market is expected to see a continuous growth of an average of 10% a year for the next five years.
Boonyanuch Boonbumrungsub, brand consultant of Punthai Coffee, said that apart from branch expansion both inside and outside petrol stations to reach out to more Punthai Coffee consumers, the company plans to roll out new products and diversify its business to Thai desserts and other non-coffee products.
It will put more focus on delivery services, leveraging the customer data of the PT Max Card and Max Card Plus membership programmes of SET-listed PTG Energy Plc, Thailand's second-largest fuel trader by sales volume, to analyse customer behaviour, increase sales and increase the frequency of visits to Punthai Coffee shops.
The number of PT Max Card and Max Card Plus members is expected to reach 19 million this year. Punthai Coffee Co is an affiliate firm of PTG Energy.
"Punthai coffee is ready to move further with the active plan after its coffee business made a profit for the first time in the fourth quarter of last year. Sales of its coffee have also doubled to 480 million baht in the first half of this year and are expected to reach 1.2 billion baht and 2.4 billion baht in 2022 and 2023, respectively," said Mr Pitak. "Our revenue from coffee will grow by 50% during 2025-2027."
Mr Pitak said Punthai Coffee ranks in the top four coffee brands in terms of brand awareness, store numbers and revenue although it has never built its brand awareness over the last 8-9 years, adding that the market is very fierce, while big coffee brands including Amazon, Starbucks and Inthanin Coffee have already dominated the market.
"We aim to refresh the brand in the latter half of the year, while the R&D team and marketing skill development programmes need to be beefed up this year," Ms Boonyanuch said.
