Starbucks outlines growth agenda for 2019 and beyond

Starbucks announced that going forward, the company aims to expand its retail store portfolio by approximately six to seven per cent new units each year at its biennial Investor Conference held in New York on 13 December. Starbucks’s leadership team, including CEO Kevin Johnson, told analysts and investors at the conference that the company also aims to grow same store sales by three to four per cent per year. “Coffee is one of the fastest growing beverage categories globally, and our [more than] 350,000 partners around the world who wear the green apron are now serving 100 million customer occasions a week,” Johnson says. “We have long been performance driven while staying true to our mission and values to create positive change and global social impact. The leadership team and I believe Starbucks is better positioned than ever for continued success.” Starbucks Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Patrick Grismer reiterated the company’s financial year 2019 (FY19) targets, as previously disclosed in the fourth quarter FY18 earnings announcement. “As the undisputed category leader globally, Starbucks is well positioned to drive meaningful growth at scale, with more focus and discipline,” Grismer says. “Today we reaffirmed our FY19 guidance and outlined our ongoing growth model. The transformative global coffee alliance with Nestlé will be accretive to non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) earnings per share in FY20 and FY21, helping to deliver expected growth of at least 13 per cent annually for those two years.” Longer term, Starbucks expects consolidated revenue growth of seven to nine per cent and non-GAAP earnings per share growth of at least 10 per cent.