Can Starbucks Nearly Double Revenues in 5 Years?

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By Chris Lange Published
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Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) announced Thursday morning at its investor day the details of its five-year plan to accelerate profitable growth as it extends its markets, channels and formats around the world. The bullet points of the plan forecasts that revenues will almost double in five years to what Howard Schultz indicated would approach $30 billion in fiscal 2019. That is from about $16.4 billion in fiscal 2014.

At Investor Day 2014, Starbucks’ leaders outlined that over the next five years the Starbucks Channel Development segment will grow its revenue by 60%, nearly double its operating income and more than double its RTD business outside of the United States. The company further said it will have a specific focus on unlocking untapped opportunities across the company’s China and Asia-Pacific region.

The coffee giant plans to achieve this growth through its launch of “Mobile Order & Pay” and delivery in the United States. Internationally, Starbucks plans to extend its global reach and has identified high-value opportunities in China, Japan, India and Brazil. Teavana and new store formats are expected to help in this growth plan.

Starbucks is the global market leader in mobile payment, with over 8 million loyalty members and 7 million mobile payment transactions each week. Also there was over $4 billion loaded onto prepaid Starbucks cards in North America in the past year.

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Starbucks described the Mobile Order & Pay as:

Mobile Order & Pay will allow customers to place orders in advance of their visit, and to pick up their ready order at their preferred Starbucks store – improving speed of service, enhancing customer loyalty and the customer experience, streamlining store operations and further extending Starbucks leadership position in mobile commerce and customer loyalty. The Portland launch will be followed by a national rollout of Mobile Order & Pay in 2015.

Also on the domestic side, Starbucks expects that it will continue top- and bottom-line growth in its food platform, specifically that U.S. food revenue will double to over $4 billion in the next five years.

The company further outlined its international plans in the release:

Starbucks today announced plans to double its store count in China — to over 3,000 stores — by 2019. When completed in the second quarter of 2015, Starbucks acquisition of Starbucks Japan — the company’s first international market outside of North America and with more than 1,000 stores its second largest market overall in retail store sales — will position Starbucks to further accelerate growth in the dynamic, rapidly-growing CAP region.

The large question to ask is whether a doubling in five years (closer to over 80%), on top of the exponential growth we have already seen, is a fair goal. Starbucks revenues were $16.447 billion in fiscal year 2014. Going back to the 2009 annual report, Starbucks had net revenues of $9.4 billion in 2007, $10.4 billion in 2008 and $9.8 billion in 2009.

A lot of changes have been happening with the company to get its growth ambitions back on track, but this is growth of an additional two-thirds going back five years (when there were 16,635 stores globally in 2009) versus projected growth of what sounds like 80% to the “will approach $30 billion in fiscal 2019” from a current base of what was listed as 19,767 stores at the end of fiscal 2013.

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Projecting that revenues would approach $30 billion from $16 billion is not quite a double, but it sounds that way.

Shares of Starbucks were up less than 1% at $80.97 in the noon hour. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $89.63 and a 52-week trading range of $67.93 to $81.75. The market cap is $60 billion.

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About the Author Chris Lange →

Chris Lange is a writer for 24/7 Wall St., based in Houston. He has covered financial markets over the past decade with an emphasis on healthcare, tech, and IPOs. During this time, he has published thousands of articles with insightful analysis across these complex fields. Currently, Lange's focus is on military and geopolitical topics.

Lange's work has been quoted or mentioned in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, The Verge, Vice, The Intelligencer, Quartz, Nasdaq, The Motley Fool, Fox Business, International Business Times, The Street, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, Benzinga, and many other major publications.

A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Lange majored in business with a particular focus on investments. He has previous experience in the banking industry and startups.

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