(Yicai Global) Feb. 13 -- Coffee startup Luckin Coffee plans to enter 15 new mid-sized cities by the end of April as it looks to achieve its goal of becoming bigger than Starbucks in China.

Hebei's provincial capital Shijiazhuang and Zhuhai in Guangdong province are among the destinations, which include some of the country's top consuming regions and those with large coffee cultures, Beijing Business Today reported. Beijing-based Luckin has already moved into three new cities since the beginning of the year, and will exist in 40 after its current push.

The firm announced plans to build 2,500 stores this year on Jan. 3, saying it aims to have 4,500 outlets by the end of this year to make it the largest coffee chain in China by cafe count. It also plans to best the current leader Starbucks by number of cups sold, and has hired Reinout Schakel, a former executive director at Standard Chartered Hong Kong, to help reach that goal.

Seattle-based Starbucks has more than 3,300 physical stores spanning 140 Chinese cities, and Chief Executive Kevin Johnson think it is "unlikely" Luckin will surpass it this year, he said in a recent media interview. His rival firm's outlets are typically small and the underdog cannot match the comprehensive service range Starbucks offers, he added.

Luckin, run by former UCar CEO Qian Zhiya, opened its first store in 2017, in Beijing. It raised USD200 million in December to value the firm at USD2.2 billion, but burned a CNY857 million (USD125 million) hole in its pocket over the first three quarters of last year, a result of what co-founder Yang Fei describes as Luckin's brand-building strategy: heavily discounting coffee to attract new users.

The firm was expecting to lose more than CNY800 million, Yang said last month, adding that the firm's addition of 2,000 outlets and 10 million users was worth the deficit.

Editor: James Boynton