Starbucks releases Q4 and full year results

Starbucks financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended 27 September 2009 continued to be negatively impacted by its underperforming home-market, the US. Consolidated revenues in Q4 declined to USD2.4 billion, compared to USD2.5 billion in the same period a year earlier, primarily due to the impact of foreign currency. In the US, net revenue decreased USD1.7 billion compared to USD1.8 billion for the same period in 2008, due to fewer company-operated retail stores. US like-for-like sales declined 1%, due to lower customer traffic in the stores. During the quarter, international operations contributed USD513.6 million net revenue, compared with USD533.6 million a year earlier, mainly due to a stronger US dollar compared to the British pound and to the Canadian dollar.

Howard Schultz, Chairman, President and CEO said: “Starbucks’ strong performance in Q4 and fiscal 2009 overall is the result of our successful efforts to improve our customer and partner experiences, the initiatives and innovations we have introduced over the past 18 months and the significant, permanent changes we have made to our cost structure. We are seeing broad-based improvement across our global business and are cautiously optimistic about the upcoming holiday period. Improving top line trends, coupled with a disciplined operational focus in both our stores and our support organisation, position us well for long-term, profitable growth.”

Full year net revenues were USD9.8 billion, a 6% decrease from USD10.4 billion reported in fiscal 2008. In particular, revenue from company-owned outlets declined 7% to USD8.2 billion from USD8.8 billion a year earlier, strongly impacted by a 6% decline in like-for-like sales and by a stronger US currency. The decline in like-for-like sales was primarily due to a 6% decline in the US operations

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