Compose Coffee’s Rapid Growth Boosts Jollibee Group’s Worldwide Push

Compose Coffee – one of South Korea’s most dynamic and influential coffee brands – continues to deliver strong growth in scale, consumer engagement, and product innovation. As part of the Jollibee Group’s international portfolio, Compose Coffee’s momentum enhances the Group’s ability to accelerate global growth while creating long-term value for shareholders.

South Korea – often referred to as the “Coffee Republic” for its high coffee consumption and intensely competitive, trend-driven market – has become the proving ground for Compose Coffee’s remarkable rise. The brand reached its 3,000-store milestone in September 2025, adding 1,000 stores in just under 18 months after opening its 2,000th location. This trajectory demonstrates scalability, operational efficiency, and strong consumer resonance.

Despite a highly competitive market, total product sales in 2025 increased by more than 10 percent year-on-year. The brand’s signature Americano sold approximately 200 million cups in 2025. And the collaboration with BTS V further strengthened the brand’s competitiveness, demonstrating top-tier cultural influence and consumer engagement.

Compose Coffee’s signature iced Americano, made with in-house roasted beans and the brand’s proprietary “Bitter Holic” blend, reflects its focus on quality, sincerity, and value. In 2025, the Americano sold approximately 200 million cups, underscoring strong consumer trust and the brand’s ability to scale in one of the world’s most competitive coffee markets.

Expanding beyond Korea

Leveraging Jollibee Group’s extensive global supply chain and operational expertise in over 30 countries, Compose Coffee is poised for a seamless entry into high-growth markets.

Building on its dominance in its home market, Compose Coffee is now set for overseas expansion, with plans to activate markets across Southeast Asia – riding the global momentum of K-food and backed by a scalable value proposition rooted in quality and affordability.

Guided by the positioning “Coffee as coffee should be,” Compose Coffee maintains direct, large-scale in-house roasting – moving away from outsourced manufacturing – and employs precision, data-driven quality controls, including moisture analysis and laser-based color tracking (ColorTrack).

The brand’s research and development group developed its signature “Bitter Holic” blend, while a 2025 campaign with BTS V underscored its “Sincerity Toward Coffee.”

Under its new CEO, Hongsuk Kim, Compose Coffee delivered the most successful marketing and product campaign in its history, a clear indication of the brand’s accelerating reach and execution strength.

Continuous product innovation translated into rapid sales: the “Buyeo Chestnut” menu surpassed 400,000 cups sold within one week of launch and its digital campaign generated 15 million views; the “Raw Chocolate Latte” series returned due to strong demand; and the “Jeolmi Series” expanded with ‘”njeolmi Cup-bing” to meet evolving dessert-beverage trends.

“Compose Coffee’s explosive growth in the world’s ‘Coffee Republic’ proves its ability to scale with quality, value, and brand love. As we bring this momentum to more international markets, we see significant opportunities to create long-term value for shareholders. Compose Coffee is a strategic growth engine for the Jollibee Group’s international portfolio, and we are committed to investing behind its global potential,” said Richard C.W. Shin, chief executive officer, Jollibee Group International, and global chief financial and risk officer, Jollibee Group.

The Jollibee Group also earlier reported positive developments across its Chinese cuisine aside from coffee and tea segments, reflecting strong execution, disciplined expansion, and continued momentum across key international markets.

The coffee segment delivered robust expansion, supported by new store openings across Highlands Coffee as well. Combined, Compose Coffee and Highlands Coffee recorded strong percentage growth alongside a healthy pipeline of new store openings (NSOs), reinforcing the Group’s confidence in the long-term potential of its Coffee and Tea portfolio.

Amplifying its brand strength, the Compose Coffee app has reached 17.59 million cumulative users – approximately one in three Koreans and 60 percent of the country’s economically active population. Following the brand’s collaboration with BTS V, new subscribers surged by 8.3 million, reflecting top tier cultural influence and engagement.

Highlands Coffee has established itself as Vietnam’s No. 1 coffee brand by market share, supported by vertically integrated sourcing and roasting capabilities, a powerful national brand, and a diversified beverage and food portfolio. The brand serves more than 100 million customers annually, supported by over 10,000 employees, demonstrating its scale and central role in daily Vietnamese life.

With a store network approaching 1,000 locations and previous record of high traffic-driven same-store sales growth or SSSG, with double-digit same store sales and transaction growth contributing to strong operating leverage, Highlands Coffee has doubled its footprint over the past three years, making it one of Southeast Asia’s largest and fastest-growing coffee platforms.

Chinese cuisine segment: Strengthened by Yonghe King and Tim Ho Wan expansion

In December, Yonghe King, one of the Jollibee Group’s wholly owned Chinese cuisine brands in China, reached a milestone with the opening of 35 new franchised store openings, all deployed under its new, efficiency-optimized store model.

This rapid expansion reinforces Yonghe King’s strategic role in driving the Jollibee Group’s footprint in China – a region where the Group has highlighted stabilizing operations and a path back to financial viability and sustainable growth.

The Tim Ho Wan concept continues to emerge as a strategic growth engine for the Jollibee Group, highly complementary to the Group’s portfolio and well positioned for long-term global expansion. Since the acquisition, execution initiatives – including product, quality, and service enhancements - have translated into strong customer reception and top tier ratings on established consumer review platforms.

In Hong Kong, Tim Ho Wan delivered a rapid turnaround under Jollibee Food Corporation’s (JFC) leadership, with 100 percent of stores now profitable within six months post-acquisition, including the first Tim Ho Wan location opened following the acquisition. In the US, early customer response to newly opened stores has been encouraging, supporting management's conviction in the scalability and long-term growth potential of the Tim Ho Wan brand across international markets and the effectiveness of JFC’s execution playbook.

The opening of Tim Ho Wan Irvine, the brand’s first company operated US location under JFC management, marks a pivotal milestone for the Group, having been achieved within one year of assuming full ownership - demonstrating disciplined, high-speed execution. Early indicators point to encouraging customer uptake, reinforcing management’s conviction in the brand’s scalability in Western markets, as noted in recent investor discussions.

Moreover, the Irvine store establishes a repeatable operational template for broader US and international expansion, positioning Tim Ho Wan to leverage the Jollibee Group’s global supply chain, strong franchising discipline, and growing leadership in Chinese cuisine internationally – supporting the Group’s aspiration to scale Tim Ho Wan to 20 North America stores by 2028 and to be one of the most valuable Chinese restaurant brands in the world.

Across both segments, these developments reinforce the Group’s disciplined execution, asset-light growth strategy, and strengthening international platform. The Chinese cuisine segment has demonstrated robust business models that strengthen economic resilience and optimize capital efficiency, resulting in:

·      Accelerated payback periods trending approximately two years, consistent with group disclosures that Hong Kong and China stores under JFC stewardship are now delivering improved profitability.

·      Highly portable, franchise-ready store formats paired with more efficient builds allow the brand to scale rapidly and consistently, supporting faster rollout across relevant trade areas.

·      Improved throughput and simplified operations, tailored to evolving consumer behavior in value-driven dining.