SPR Coffee is one of Taiwan's two major coffee chains. It entered mainland China in 2001 and in 2010 claimed 545 franchises worldwide. In March 2011 Asia Times Online

Asia Times Online

Asia Times Online is a bilingual English‒Chinese, Internet-based newspaper covering geopolitics, politics, economics and business "from an Asian perspective"...

 counted SPR Coffee, with another originally Taiwanese competitor UBC Coffee, as one of the major competitors with Starbucks

Starbucks

Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...

 and Costa Coffee

Costa Coffee

Costa Coffee is a British coffeehouse company founded in 1971 by Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa, as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops. Since 1995 it has been a subsidiary of Whitbread, since when the company has grown to over...

"competing for a slice of China's coffee pie."