Thailand's Café Amazon has officially entered the Bangladeshi market, inaugurating its first two stores in Dhaka after a delay of roughly two years from the original timeline.

The launches took place on 6 August, beginning with a flagship outlet in the Bashundhara Residential Area, followed by a second location in Bashundhara City Shopping Mall.

Café Amazon's parent company, PTT Oil and Retail Business (PTT OR), signed a master franchise agreement with the Bangladeshi conglomerate Bashundhara Group in 2024. The agreement outlined plans to open 100 stores across the South Asian country, with the first location originally slated to debut later that same year. The scale of the target — 100 stores in a country of more than 170 million people — underscores the appetite among international chains to capture share in Bangladesh's underpenetrated organized coffee market.

Founded in 2002 as a coffee service for customers at PTT gas stations in Thailand, Café Amazon has since expanded into one of the world's largest coffee chains by store count. The brand operates more than 5,000 total outlets, the majority of which are located in its home market of Thailand.

Beyond Thailand, Café Amazon maintains an international footprint spanning Cambodia, China, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Oman, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam. Bangladesh now becomes the latest addition to that growing list and marks the chain's entry into South Asia, a region where organized coffee retail remains nascent but is gaining traction among urban consumers.

PTT OR, a subsidiary of Thailand's state-owned energy conglomerate PTT Public Company Limited, has positioned its retail business — including Café Amazon — as a key growth driver amid efforts to diversify beyond oil and gas. The café chain's expansion model relies heavily on master franchise agreements with local partners in target markets.

Bashundhara Group, one of Bangladesh's largest industrial and real estate conglomerates, will serve as the local franchise operator. The company's extensive real estate portfolio, including residential and commercial developments in Dhaka, is expected to support the planned rollout of subsequent locations. The partnership pairs Café Amazon's high-volume, affordably positioned format with a local partner that controls prime retail real estate in the capital.

The original announcement of the Bangladesh expansion generated significant interest given the country's rapidly growing café culture and young consumer demographic. However, the launch faced delays, pushing the debut from its initially planned 2024 timeframe to August 2025.

Further details on the timeline for the remaining planned stores have not been disclosed.