Starbucks Targets 9,000 Stores in China by 2025 as It Invests in Faster Store Operations

This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on September 13, 2022.

On September 13, 2022, Starbucks used its investor meeting to lay out a broad operating reset: faster beverage production, updated store equipment, more stores in the U.S. and China, and deeper loyalty engagement.

Faster Store Execution

Starbucks said it was investing an additional $450 million in the U.S. market to update store equipment and improve barista productivity.

The company gave a simple example: before the improvements, making one beverage took about 87 seconds and 16 steps. After the changes, the process could be reduced to 36 seconds and 13 steps.

Founder Howard Schultz had previously pointed to cold beverage execution as a key bottleneck. Cold drinks had become more complex to make, while cold beverage order volume had risen sharply, creating pressure on store throughput.

Starbucks said cold brew previously required 20 steps in store. Cold brew had already become a $1.2 billion business for the company. With a new technology developed by its R&D team, the process could be reduced to four steps and completed in seconds. Frappuccino production time was also reduced by one-third.

U.S. Expansion and North America Growth

Beyond operating efficiency, Starbucks also announced store expansion plans. From 2023 to 2025, the company planned to add 2,000 stores in the U.S. market.

Chief Operating Officer John Culver expected Starbucks' North America revenue to grow 40% over the following three years.

Loyalty and Partner Tools

Starbucks also planned to keep expanding its loyalty base through external partnerships, including allowing Starbucks “Stars” to be converted with airline miles.

As of July 3, 2022, Starbucks had 27.4 million active members in the U.S. market, and more than half of its orders came from loyalty-program members.

The company also acknowledged pressure on store employees. Changes in ordering behavior and lower store efficiency had increased stress on staff, and barista turnover peaked in 2021.

Starbucks' CFO said the company was developing an app for baristas to manage their schedules and pay, and to support two-way communication with the company.

China Target: 9,000 Stores by 2025

In China, despite ongoing pandemic-control challenges at the time, Starbucks signaled that it still intended to expand aggressively.

The previous expectation was for Starbucks to exceed 6,000 stores in China in 2022. The updated target was to reach 9,000 stores in China by 2025.

FoodBud also referenced Starbucks investor-meeting materials titled “Recipe for Reinvention: Starbucks unveils innovations for better customer, barista experiences” and “Reimagining the Third Place: How Starbucks is evolving its store experience.”

Note: Store-count, revenue-growth, and operational targets in this article are historical forward-looking figures from 2022.