Along L.A.’s Hollywood Boulevard, an unassuming takeout-only store selling boba milk tea for less than $5 and soft serve ice cream for around $1 opened its doors in December. Within weeks, Mixue, which raised $444 million when it went public on the Hong Kong stock market last March, had opened multiple stores in New York City, and planned more across California. The snaking queues and rapid rollout of Mixue in the U.S. likely surprises few in Asia, where the chain’s ever-smiling “Snow King” mascot can be found in many neighborhoods—sometimes with more than one store per block. By store count, it’s the world’s biggest fast-food chain, with more than 53,000 stores worldwide across mainland China, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, and more. Mixue’s success is partly a result of its relatively accessible franchising model and low cost supply chain, which allowed it to expand rapidly in smaller cities and rural areas early on, fueling its growth into more urban, high-competition markets. Mixue’s 2025 revenue was 33.56 billion yuan ($4.87 billion), up 35% from the year before. —Miranda Jeyaretnam
