Starbucks India Speeding up store rollouts

Starbucks India plans to ramp up its store rollout. The global coffee chain opened 25 new stores in the last financial year and 30 new stores this year with local partner Tata Global Beverages – but plans to open a far greater number of new stores in the near future, according to Tata Starbucks CEO Navin Gurnaney, with an investment of more than US$6.4 – 7.1 million.

“We spend anywhere between $213,000 and $284,000 to build a store,” said Gurnaney in an interview with the Business Standard. “We would not be being aggressive with our store growth if we didn’t see potential. We think the market is very strong. Excellence is always well received and we believe we have an excellent experience, partners and products. We are extremely bullish on India. India is one of the top five growing markets for Starbucks internationally.”

Starbucks India stores serve an average of 270,000 customers per week, with 90 percent of their chosen beverages being coffee.

“People don’t come to us just to buy a sandwich,” added Gurnaney. “It is always an accompaniment with a beverage. The coffee category has been growing with all groups of people and the millennials are certainly gravitating towards coffee. But not just millennials, it is also the 30 years something upwardly mobile, better traveled and better-educated people which are growing in India.”

While there has been some speculation that Starbucks Tata is considering an acquisition of a rival brand, Gurnaney insisted that Starbucks India outlook is extremely optimistic, and that future plans are to be “thoughtfully aggressive”.

Starbucks entered India with its first store in Mumbai launching in 2012.