Starbucks 2Q Rises But Sales Miss Street View, Shares Fall

Starbucks Corporation (Nasdaq: SBUX), the world's largest coffee shop chain, said Thursday its fiscal second-quarter profit jumped 18.5 percent on rising sales at stores open at least one year and higher efficiency.

But those sales missed analyst expectations and shares of the Seattle, Wash., company fell $3.16, or 5.2 percent, to $60.66 in aftermarket trading.

Net income for the three months ended April 1 rose to $309.9 million, or 40 cents per share, compared with $261.6 million, or 34 cents per share, in the year-earlier period.

Operating income jumped to $430.4 million from $376.1 million, a 14.4 percent improvement.

Revenue increased 1.47 percent to $3.2 billion from $2.79 billion in the fiscal second quarter of last year.

Analysts polled by Reuters expect Starbucks to report earnings of 39 cents per share, up 14.7 percent from 34 cents per share a year earlier. Revenue is forecast at $3.18 billion, up 13.9 percent from $2.79 billion a year earlier.

Sales at stores that have been open at least one year, known as same-store sales or comparable-store sales, rose globally by 7 percent. But analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News expected a gain of 8.2 percent. The difference stemmed from declining same-store sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Starbucks raised its full fiscal year guidance for earnings per share to a range of $1.81 to $1.84, representing 19 percent to 21 percent growth over the $1.52 in the previous year. The increased earnings guidance is less than analyst expectations for full-year earnings of $1.86, which also contributed to the aftermarket decline in shares.

The company said it is increasing its goal for new stores in the fiscal year to 1,000.

Starbucks spent the better part of the quarter introducing new products and continuing global expansion. That, combined with low costs, helped the company's outlook, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Joseph T. Buckley.

Starbucks' base earnings power has been redefined higher by substantial cost savings that should be sustainable, he wrote in a recent note.

On Feb. 15, the coffee chain announced the opening of licensed stores in the majority of Target's 135 Canadian locations.

Starbucks also announced a partnership with India's Tata Global Beverages, creating TATA Starbucks Ltd. The joint venture will operate Starbucks cafes across India, beginning with stores in Delhi and Mumbai this year.

The coffee giant also made inroads in Costa Rica, announcing in January the opening of its first store there this May. It also continued to expand in China and the Asia-Pacific region. Starbucks on average opened one new store in China every four days in 2011.