Costa Coffee, the leading coffee chain owned by Coca-Cola, is betting big on India and ramping up its presence in the top cities. The restaurant chain, which is run by franchise partner, Devyani International, in India, plans to strengthen its span-India presence in the next three years
“We believe India can be a significant growth story for Costa Coffee’s global business,” Vinay Nair, General Manager, India & Emerging Markets, Costa Coffee told businessline. He added, “Last year, we kickstarted our expansion in India (after Coca-Cola took over the brand in 2018-19) with Devyani International and added about 60 stores.”
Costa Coffee, which opened its 100th store in India in Delhi in January, is currently operating 115 stores. It is looking to strengthen its presence in the existing regions and also expand into new cities.
“We are following a cluster-based approach for the expansion. So over the next three years, we expect to have a strong presence in the top 8-10 cities along with the adjacent markets. We are also tapping into specialised channels at airports, highways, and healthcare,” Nair explained. The coffee chain is looking at expanding its presence in the Mumbai-Pune cluster, Bengaluru cluster, and the Hyderabad cluster.
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“Coffee culture is still in the early stage of category development in a tea-drinking nation of ours. Young consumers are increasingly embracing coffee as a category, and there is a thriving coffee community in India. There is a growing interest in speciality coffee. We are quite bullish about the India consumption story, as for us, coffee is a long-term bet,” he added.
The brand has also refreshed its brand positioning with the launch of the new campaign ‘You x Costa Coffee.’ “We have been building up to this over the past six months and all our new stores are being launched with the “uplift design” elements. This initiative aims to enable the brand to strengthen its connection with the current and next generation of coffee drinks as our outlets serve as networking and socialising hotspots,” Nair added.