Highlands Coffee crosses 1,000 stores in Vietnam as IPO talks grow

Highlands Coffee has crossed the 1,000-store mark in Vietnam, a scale that turns a once-small cafe into one of the country’s most familiar daily stops. The milestone matters because Highlands is no longer just another chain in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City; it has become part of the routine for millions of drinkers, serving more than 100 million cups of coffee a year. That reach is now feeding directly into IPO talk at Jollibee Foods Corp., which is weighing a standalone listing for the brand in Vietnam.

World Coffee Portal traces the chain back to a 90-square-foot stall near Hoan Kiem Lake, a modest beginning that now looks like the first chapter of a much larger consumer story. Jollibee first invested in Highlands Coffee in 2012, when the brand had 56 outlets, and some reports now place it near 1,000 locations. In a coffee market where brand familiarity and repeat traffic matter as much as menu innovation, Highlands has built the kind of footprint that signals habit, not just growth.

Jollibee said on March 4, 2026 that Highlands Coffee’s board was evaluating a standalone IPO in Vietnam, with international and local advisers already working on the offering. The company hopes to complete the listing by the first quarter of 2027, subject to market conditions, regulatory approvals and internal preparations. Jollibee has said the move would give Highlands direct access to Vietnam’s capital markets, sharpen its strategic and operational focus, and support the next phase of growth. It also pointed to Vietnam’s fast-growing equity market and rising retail investor participation, with retail stockbroking accounts projected to reach about 11 million by 2030 from an estimated nine million last year.

The financial case behind the story is just as striking. Tui Tr reported that Highlands posted US$41.5 million in profit last year as it approached 1,000 stores, after opening 134 new outlets in 2025 and ending the year with 985 locations. Jollibee’s 2024 annual report said Highlands had 850 Vietnamese locations at the end of 2024, while the group’s Vietnam business generated 904 million pesos, or US$46.71 million, in EBITDA, up 20% year on year. Vietnam was Jollibee’s second-largest market for Jollibee stores and its largest market for Highlands Coffee.

That is what makes Highlands feel like more than Vietnam’s answer to Starbucks. It is a local coffee chain that moved from a lakeside stall to national scale, then into the kind of business Jollibee now believes can carry a public listing and a much larger future.