Home-grown Luckin Coffee, based in Beijing, is positioning itself as a lower-cost alternative to Seattle's Starbucks, which has been operating in China for 20 years. Starbucks accounts for almost 75 percent of specialist coffee stores in China, according to Euromonitor International. "The market will not only have Starbucks," Qian said. China's growing coffee-shop market grew to 30.1 billion ($4.72 billion) in 2017, compared with 26.1 billion in 2016, according to Euromonitor. Guo didn't identify suppliers that were asked by Starbucks to stop cooperating with Luckin, China Daily reported on May 15.