Expanding Starbucks Posts Record Results

SEATTLE-Starbucks Corp., the coffee house juggernaut with plans to open 2,400 stores this year, reported record financial results Thursday for the second fiscal quarter that ended April 1. The Seattle-based company is expanding via a combination of US and international stores as well as company-owned and licensed locations, with the international segment playing an increasingly larger role.

The 2,400 new stores that Starbucks plans to open this year will include about 1,700 in the US, with 1,000 of them to be company-operated and 700 planned as licensed locations. The international tally of 700 stores will include 300 company-operated and 400 licensed locations.

Starbucks executives outlined growth plans and discussed the record results in a conference call with financial analysts Thursday. The company reported that quarterly earnings rose 18% to $151 million and 19 cents per share, compared with $127 million and 16 cents per share for the comparable quarter a year ago. Sales climbed 20% to $2.3 billion as the company opened 560 new retail outlets during the quarter, and same store sales grew 4%. The company attributed the increase in comparable store sales to a 3% increase in the average value per transaction and a 1% increase in the number of customer transactions.