Why Gong Cha Has Kept Growing Sales for 52 Consecutive Months Even After the Bubble Tea Boom Ended
ビジネスジャーナルTV
Translated from 日本語
The bubble tea boom that began around 2018 was over within a few years, and the shops that had been everywhere on the streets disappeared one after another. Gong Cha alone, however, has reportedly kept growing its sales for 52 months, or more than four years. This explainer video, based on an article from Business Journal, asks why. The speaker's answer is that every boom, no matter how big, eventually ends, and only the companies that manage to turn a fad into an everyday habit survive. Gong Cha, the speaker explains, did exactly that.
It Stopped Being a "Bubble Tea Shop"
In the video, the interviewer raises a question: "If the bubble tea boom is over, then Gong Cha, as a bubble tea shop, must be in serious trouble too, right?" The speaker first concedes that "that's what you'd normally think," then answers that Gong Cha stopped thinking of itself as a bubble tea shop.
Specifically, Gong Cha changed how it describes itself to "a tea café for enjoying authentic Asian tea every day." The star is the tea leaves, not the tapioca pearls, and tapioca has been put back in its place as just one of many toppings. The speaker sees this as the turning point for survival. The shops that jumped in because bubble tea was trendy vanished along with the boom, but Gong Cha stepped off the boom first and competed on the appeal of its tea. That difference, the speaker says, determined who survived and who didn't.
Weapon No. 1: Redefining the Brand to Capture an Untapped Market
The speaker says Gong Cha's survival was supported by two weapons. The first is redefining the brand. The speaker stresses that this is not just a change of wording and points to the structure of the market as evidence. Japan's tea market is worth more than 1 trillion yen, yet in the café world, shops focused mainly on tea make up less than 10% of the total. In other words, the market is "wide open."
The speaker goes on to point out that quite a lot of people aren't big fans of coffee but find other drinks unsatisfying. In the speaker's view, Gong Cha skillfully went after that unclaimed demand in the middle.
Weapon No. 2: Using DX to Turn the "Complexity" of Ordering into "Fun"
The second weapon is DX, or the power of digital technology. Ordering a tea drink involves choosing the tea leaves, the sweetness level, the amount of ice, and the toppings, which makes the process fairly complicated. Ordering at the register takes time, and if people are lined up behind you, you start to feel rushed.
The speaker explains that Gong Cha turned this weakness into "the fun of taking your time to choose on your smartphone" through mobile ordering on LINE. On top of that, when people can choose at their leisure, they are more likely to think, "Well then, I'll add a topping," which naturally raises the average spend per customer. The video noted that app membership had grown to about 2.6 million as of January this year.
"Habit Formation" Reflected in the Numbers, and the Investment Fund's Assessment
As a result, Gong Cha has reached about 220 stores in Japan and about 40 million customer visits a year. According to the speaker, these figures exceed even those at the peak of the bubble tea boom. Furthermore, the repeat rate is about 74%, which the speaker positions as the clearest proof that Gong Cha has become an everyday habit rather than a one-off boom.
In recognition of this strength, the speaker reports that there is even talk that in August 2026, the investment fund Bain Capital will acquire Gong Cha's global business for more than 100 billion yen.
Three Lessons from Gong Cha
The speaker sums up the lessons from the Gong Cha case in the following three points:
- Reexamine the true appeal of your product and separate it from the boom
- Use digital technology to turn hassles into enjoyable experiences
- Make it something that can slip easily into everyday life
The interviewer responds that the tea really is delicious, and since Gong Cha has always been popular, it had blended into daily life so naturally that they hadn't noticed the change at all.
Is Your Product a "Boom" or a "Habit"?
Finally, the speaker poses what they call the most important question to viewers: Is your work, product, or service a boom, or is it a habit? Will what shines today still be chosen three years from now? Booms always end eventually, but things that become habits endure. The speaker closed the video by saying that they, too, want to think about which category their own work falls into.
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