Starbucks acquires local coffee company
By Zheng Lifei (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-10-25 11:17
"We are now poised to expand rapidly in this important region two years ahead of
the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics," Wang said.
A Chinese customer sits
inside a Starbucks shop in Beijing in this Jan 3, 2006 file photo. [AP
Photo] |
Beijing Sanyuan Company will continue to hold the remaining 10 per cent stake
in Beijing Mei Da.
The deal comes at a time when the coffee chain giant is accelerating its
expansion in China, which its chairman said, "would soon become the firm's
largest market outside of North America."
China accounted for less than 10 per cent of Starbucks' US$6.4 billion global
sales in 2005, its chairman Howard Schultz said in an interview with China Daily
earlier this year.
"We believe China will eventually be the largest international market for
Starbucks going forward," Martin Coles, president of Starbucks Coffee
International, said at a press event yesterday in Beijing.
The US coffee chain operator is planning to open 20,000 stores around the
world in the coming years, of which half are expected to be in the Asia-Pacific
region, according to Coles.
"And in China, the number will be in the thousands," the president said
yesterday, declining to give specific figures.
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