Starbucks boosts presence in China with growing store count

Photo taken on Sept. 27, 2022 shows a Starbucks store in downtown Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Liu Ying)

SHANGHAI, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. coffee chain giant Starbucks said Friday that the recovering Chinese market will unleash huge consumer demand, with its store count on the Chinese mainland reaching 6,090 in the first quarter (Q1) of the 2023 fiscal year.

The company continued to invest in the Chinese mainland market by opening 69 net new stores and entering 10 new cities, according to its financial report and relevant financial conference for its fiscal Q1, ending on Jan. 1, 2023.

During the conference, Starbucks said that its plan to open 9,000 stores in China by the end of 2025 remains unchanged.

Starbucks is confident that China's optimized COVID response policies will put the country on a path to reintroducing normalcy and routine back into people's lives, to resume pre-Covid levels of consumer, social and economic growth, said Howard Schultz, Starbucks Coffee Company's interim CEO.

In September 2022, Starbucks announced it would have 9,000 stores on the Chinese mainland by 2025 and provide 35,000 new jobs.