With the rise of online celebrity coffee brands, Starbucks is having a hard time.

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Despite the cold shoulder in the u.s. market, Starbucks' same-store sales in mainland china rose 8% in the quarter.

KFC, McDonald's and other fast-food brands have started to sell coffee, coupled with the rapid rise of online celebrity coffee brands, Starbucks life is not easy.

Starbucks, a coffee chain, released its new quarterly results on Thursday. Financial figures show that in the fourth quarter of 2017 (from July 2 to October 1, 2017), revenue was $5.698 billion, a slight decline of 0.2% in youth and below market expectations of $5.8 billion, while global business grew by 2% compared with same-store sales. Below market expectations of 3.3 per cent.

Although Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson was reluctant to admit to being attacked by various coffee brands, CFO Scott Maw was aware of "rising competitive pressure" at the earnings conference and said, "We will focus on promoting earnings growth in 2018."

That's true. McCoffee, a McDonald's coffee brand, recently updated its menu with new macchiato caffeine and lattes, and sold espresso for $2 a cup. In September, Nestl é bought a stake in online celebrity coffee brand Blue Bottle68%.

Nestl é and Blue Bottle have jointly announced plans to open 55 new stores by the end of this year. Blue Bottle has existing stores in the Bay area, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo, Japan. Starbucks management has said that independent fashion coffee shops are the biggest threat to its business.

Starbucks has been facing lower-than-expected same-store sales in recent quarters, and US store traffic in its home market has continued to decline. In the earnings report meeting, some analysts pointed out that in addition to the hurricane weather, the increase in mobile phone orders and complex menu settings are also the reasons for the decline in same-store sales.

In order to improve its profit margin, Starbucks also began to clean up its business. In the quarterly report, Starbucks announced a $384 million offer to sell its tea and beverage brand Tazo to Unilever (55.71,0.05,0.09 per cent). In 1999, Starbucks bought Tazo for $8.1 million. At present, it is mainly sold in grocery stores and convenience stores in the form of packaged and bottled drinks. The Tazo brand had sales of $112 million last year.

In the future, Starbucks' tea series will be more focused on Teavana. In July, Starbucks announced that it would close all its 379 Teavana tea stores in the coming year, but would continue to sell the brand in Starbucks stores.

Although Starbucks was given the cold shoulder in the u. S.market, same-store sales in mainland china rose 8% in the quarter. Given the importance of the Chinese market, Starbucks has also regained its operating rights in order to ensure the continued growth of sales in mainland China.

At the end of July, Starbucks announced that it would buy a 50% stake in Starbucks' joint venture in eastern China, Shanghai Unified Starbucks Coffee Co., Ltd., for $1.3 billion in cash. Upon completion of the acquisition, Starbucks will achieve full direct management of the mainland market and acquire ownership of 1300 stores in eastern China. The deal is expected to close in early 2018.

Starbucks CEOKevin Johnson has said that the full direct management of the entire Starbucks mainland market is a key step in promoting Starbucks'"multi-faceted Chinese market strategy to achieve Starbucks' long-term profitable development in the Asian market".

As the quarter fell short of market expectations, Starbucks lowered its full-year marketing forecast to 12% from 15% to 20%. Starbucks shares fell nearly 6 per cent in after-hours trading in the us stock market after the new results were released.