(Yicai) Feb. 20 -- Chinese tea drink brand Auntea Jenny has filed for an initial public offering in Hong Kong in a bid to gain the upper hand in the increasingly competitive new-style tea drink market.

Auntea Jenny plans to list on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the name Auntea Jenny Shanghai Industrial, according to the prospectus the Shanghai-based company submitted on Feb. 14.

Auntea Jenny opened its first store in downtown Shanghai in 2013 and has since expanded to major Chinese cities. It had a total of nearly 7,600 stores in China as of December, ranking fourth in the country. Almost all of them were franchised stores.

Having few self-operated stores means handling the company's core competitiveness to franchised stores, Zhu Danpeng, deputy head of Guangdong province's food safety guarantee association, told Yicai. Companies with more franchised stores have shortcomings in food safety, management, control, supply chain, customer loyalty, and service systems despite its light-asset business operation model, Zhu added.

Companies should first put more resources in self-operated stores to improve their risk-resistance capability and become stronger, rather than just opening franchised stores, especially in the early stage, Zhu noted.

China's new-style tea drink industry is very competitive, as more and more players enter the market. But this brings more risks, such as similar products and decreasing investment interest, which forces players to actively seek listing plans to improve their competitiveness.

Auntea Jenny is the fourth new-style tea drink company filing for IPO in Hong Kong. Nayuki Holdings was listed on the HKEX in 2021, while GoodMe, Mixue Bingcheng, and ChaBaiDao have submitted their prospectuses and await approval.

Only one of the industry's fundraisers held between January and August last year reached CNY100 million (USD13.9 million), according to a recent industry report.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione