Nestl é launched a ready-to-drink coffee that can compete with freshly brewed coffee in convenience stores.

In recent years, China's ready-to-drink coffee market has grown rapidly. According to Euromonitor, the market for instant coffee reached 5.487 billion yuan in 2014, an increase of 22% over the same period last year, and is expected to reach 9.193 billion yuan by 2017, equivalent to a growth rate of 67.5% in three years. Although the market share of instant coffee is still far away from instant coffee, which has the largest market share, at the current growth rate, the gap will be narrowing day by day, not to mention that the market share of instant coffee is already decreasing. Mintel, a consultancy, expects the share of instant coffee to fall by more than 5 percentage points to 66 per cent by 2019.

Nestl é is the undisputed leader in the Chinese market, whether instant coffee or instant coffee, accounting for more than 50% of the market. Since one side is shrinking, it is inevitable to increase investment on the other side. The launch of a new product priced at 7 yuan is one of the ways for the company to compete for more market share in the ready-to-drink coffee market.

Competition in the ready-to-drink coffee market is becoming increasingly fierce. In addition to Nestl é, Suntory, Unification, Kirin, including Coca-Cola, Wa, and Master Kang, who works with Starbucks, are also involved. With the launch of Xuekamu, Nestl é is trying to compete with these competitors in terms of price, packaging design, drinking style and even taste. It can not stop at the middle end (about 5 yuan) of silky latte and silky mocha coffee. The slightly higher-priced Snow Camos aims at the needs of middle and high-end consumer groups. It not only distances itself from the 4-5 yuan ready-to-drink coffee, such as Suntory latte, Coca-Cola Joya, Kirin Fire Coffee, but also is lower than the price of Starbucks bottled (16-25 yuan) instant coffee, while enriching Nestl é's own ready-to-drink coffee product line.

However, using convenience stores as the main channel means that while Nestl é competes with these competitors, it may also have to compete with convenience store-owned freshly brewed coffee.

Many convenience stores have also launched their own brand of freshly brewed coffee based on adding new products and expanding dining functions, priced at 8 yuan to 12 yuan. This caffeine is standardized, self-service, fresh and other features have also attracted some white-collar customers. Convenience stores in Shanghai that sell freshly brewed coffee can sell 40 cups of coffee a day. Convenience stores such as Lawson, 7-Eleven and China Resources Vango are also very active in selling freshly brewed coffee.