Starbucks expects India to be one of its top markets globally

The World’s largest coffee chain, Starbucks recently opened its 100th store in the country. It expects India to be one of its top five markets in the future. Starbucks currently operates in 75 markets in the world with 28,000 stores globally. India is one of the most important markets for the coffee chain currently. John Culver, Group President of Starbucks International and Channel Development mentioned that India will be one of the top five markets that Starbucks operates around the World. This is mainly due to the success of the coffee chain and the way in which people have embraced Starbucks in the country.

He also mentioned that the company is going to continue with its investment in innovation. The reason behind the success is also the strong partnership with Tata Global Beverages, which makes it a unique joint venture which sits at the top of all the partnerships that they currently operate in the world. US is the largest market for Starbucks followed by Canada, China, Japan and UK. Starbucks has 50:50 joint venture with Tata Global Beverages and operates across six cities under the name of Tata-Starbucks. It began its operations since October 2012.

John Culver mentioned that they are excited about the opportunity that India presents for the future of Starbucks. Early 2018, Starbucks will enter its seventh city-Kolkata and have three new stores. The brand aims to continue to grow the store base and look at new cities to expand their operations. The coffee chain has made a long term investment in India and they are seeing a strong financial performance of the stores based on the investment made by the company in order to build a strong foundation for growth in the market. Through the partnership with Tata, Starbucks is taking a long term view of their opportunity in the country and are optimistic about the growth of the market.

Starbucks made an investment in tea with an introduction of Teavana in India in January. Currently, coffee constitutes about 60% of the beverages sold in their store and tea is 10%. Over the next five years, the number of employees will double to 3000 and the company aims to increase the proportion of women in its workforce from 25% to 40% by the end of 2022. Starbucks has various joint initiatives in the country along with the joint venture partner, which includes the expansion of the market of Himalayan mineral water as well as providing job skill training. It has partnered with Tata for its Strive program which provides skills and opportunities to the youth in the country. Starbucks has committed to hire 3000 of the youth in the coming years in the business.

Starbucks launched the Himalayan Mineral Water in Singapore last year and has launched Tata Group’s single origin coffee in the United States. The coffee chain will continue to bring new coffee blends to India and also look at different ways to expand coffee from outside India. In 2016, the company launched India Estates blend across some Asian markets.