© Reuters. A view shows a Starbucks logo at a Starbucks coffee outlet in New Delhi, India, May 30, 2023. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis
(Reuters) – Starbucks (NASDAQ:) beat Wall Street expectations for quarterly comparable sales on Thursday, as steady demand for its pricey coffees and cold drinks in North America offset a feeble recovery in China.
Shares of the global coffeehouse juggernaut rose 3% in premarket trading.
Starbucks has benefited from a younger, more affluent consumer base despite the wider U.S. restaurant industry grappling with a slowdown as sticky inflation prompts people to rethink dining out.
Traffic at the coffee chain’s U.S. locations jumped throughout the quarter, data from Placer.ai showed, and received a further boost from the fanfare around its iconic fall season staple, the Pumpkin Spice Latte, which returned to menus late in August.
Comparable store sales in the U.S. increased 8%.
While Starbucks had said China sales would come in similar to what it saw last quarter, it reported a 5% jump – much smaller than the 46% surge seen previously – suggesting that trends in the market were not recovering as robustly as expected.
Global comparable sales at Starbucks climbed 8% in the fiscal fourth quarter, compared with analysts’ expectations for a 6.56% rise, according to LSEG IBES data.