Starbucks plans 28,000 new coffee shops worldwide; eyes India

Mumbai: Starbucks, the world's largest coffee-shop chain, is planning to more than triple its stores to 40,000 worldwide, 10,000 more than the previous target. Starbucks will also enter four new international markets in the coming year – Brazil, Egypt, India, and Russia – bringing the total to 40 overseas markets.

The company said half of the new Starbucks stores will be in the United States and half overseas, but it did not give a time frame for the expansion.

``Our global opportunity is much greater than we originally thought," chief executive Jim Donald was quoted as saying in a conference in Seattle.

Starbucks also has an agreement with Apple Computers that will allow the company to sell music played in its stores at Apple's iTunes online store.

Starbucks is rushing for new locations to keep customers from going to rivals Dunkin' Donuts Inc, McDonalds and other such chains.

Starbucks, which had 12,440 stores as of October 1, 2006, said its September sales rose six per cent, the highest in three months.

Starbucks said sales at new stores are rising, with average first-year sales for company-operated stores in the United States at $920 million. Revenues at company-operated stores in the United States averaged more than $1 million per store.