Luckin Coffee launches in U.S. rivaling Starbucks, Tim Hortons

China’s Luckin Coffee (OTCPK:LKNCY) opened its first two stores in New York this week, making its U.S. debut in a market dominated by listed rivals such as Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) and Restaurant Brands International’s (NYSE:QSR) Tim Hortons.

Xiamen-headquartered Luckin (OTCPK:LKNCY) marked its U.S. launch on Monday, offering discounts and giveaways at its newly opened outlets in Greenwich Village, near the New York University campus, and in NoMad.

According to Luckin’s (OTCPK:LKNCY) Instagram page, the company continues to offer a basic brewed coffee at $1.99 for first orders placed on its app. Meanwhile, at Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), a standard tall Latte costs around $3-$5 in New York City.

“The United States, as the world’s largest coffee consumption market with a rich coffee culture, is a strategically important market for Luckin Coffee’s global expansion,” CEO and co-founder Jinyi Guo remarked.

Established in 2017, the company operates over 22,000 outlets in China, and its global footprint of more than 24,000 cafés includes 57 self-operated stores in Singapore and eight franchised outlets in Malaysia.

Luckin’s (OTCPK:LKNCY) U.S. launch comes after its highly successful IPO on Nasdaq, which valued the company at about $4.2B in 2019. However, a year later, LKNCY was forced to delist after an investigation found that much of its 2019 sales were fabricated, prompting an SEC probe that led to a $180M settlement.