The McKinsey Quarterly reports:
"By 2010, 40 million households will earn more than 48,000 renminbi ($6,000) per year, equivalent to $24,000 in terms of purchasing power parity and enough to qualify a household as middle class by U.S. standards.
Meanwhile, the number of Chinese with at least $1 million in assets hit about 350,000 recently, and you can bet that number is increasing daily. (The number of millionaires in the U.S. is reported to be 9.3 million.) "
Most of them live around cities (e.g. Shanghai) and a whole lot of them are going to increasingly develope a taste for quality coffee.
Not to be a total pumper, I am annoyed at the recent downhill in pps and also would be critical of the $1m in "office expenses" and rather high compensation mgmt seems rushing to dole out to themselves. Consultant fees, well maybe, dealing in foreign countries in the bottom-up fashion would seem to require a certain amount of special know-how, finesse, languages skill, and would seem to benefit their preceived competitive advantage in this area.
Still, if it weren't for all the expenses, some questionable at this early stage, the bottom line would look a lot better right now.
Delays of shop opening due to weather is plausable. A lot of Chinese companies lost some revenue due to the unusual heavy snows. The holiday is over so that is also not a factor going forward...
