Starbucks Corporation is a Seattle-based roaster and retailer of specialty coffee that ended its 2025 fiscal year with 40,990 stores in 89 markets. It buys and roasts arabica coffee and sells drinks, food and packaged coffee through its own coffeehouses, licensed stores and grocery partners.
The company matters now because it is in the middle of a turnaround. Its “Back to Starbucks” plan, launched in 2024, produced the first rise in global comparable store sales in seven quarters in the period to September 2025.
Overview and Founding
Starbucks opened its first shop on March 30, 1971, at 2000 Western Avenue in Seattle. Its founders were Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl, and in its first year Siegl was its only employee.
Howard Schultz joined as marketing director in 1982. In 1987 he and a group of investors bought the company for $3.8 million and began turning it into a chain of coffeehouses, a story told in our profile of Howard Schultz.
The listed company, Starbucks Corporation, was formed in 1985 and its shares trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol SBUX.
Key Milestones
- 1971: The first Starbucks store opens in Seattle.
- 1982: Howard Schultz is hired as marketing director.
- 1987: Schultz and a group of investors buy Starbucks for $3.8 million.
- 2024: Brian Niccol becomes chairman and chief executive on September 9, and the company announces its “Back to Starbucks” strategy.
- 2025: A restructuring plan announced on September 25 closes 627 stores in the fourth fiscal quarter, most of them in North America.
- 2025: The Green Apron Service model goes live in all company-operated stores in the United States.
- 2025: In November, Starbucks names Boyu Capital as its joint venture partner for growth in China.
The Turnaround Plan
The “Back to Starbucks” strategy rests on four ideas set out in the 2025 annual report: supporting the green-apron store staff, improving the customer experience, restoring the coffeehouse as a community place, and strengthening the brand through new products, marketing and the in-store and digital experience.
For fiscal 2025 as a whole, global comparable store sales fell 1 percent. The fourth quarter brought a 1 percent rise, with sales in China up 2 percent and flat results in the United States.
The company says its next steps include new food and beverage platforms, a reworked Starbucks Rewards programme and more support for its licensed partners.
What It Does
Starbucks makes most of its money in company-operated stores, which brought in $30.7 billion of its $37.2 billion revenue in fiscal 2025. Licensed stores, run by partners who use the brand under agreement, added $4.4 billion.
The rest comes from selling coffee, tea and ready-to-drink products in other channels. Packaged Starbucks coffee reaches supermarkets and food service outlets through the Global Coffee Alliance with Nestle.
Besides the main Starbucks Coffee brand, the company sells goods under the Teavana, Ethos and Starbucks Reserve names.
The United States and China are its two biggest markets. At the end of fiscal 2025 they held 16,864 and 8,011 stores, or 61 percent of the total.
Most of its people work behind the counter. Of about 223,000 employees in the United States, some 214,000 are in company-operated stores, and about 153,000 of the 158,000 staff abroad also work in stores. The company calls its employees partners.
Coffee habits in its home market are changing, with recent research showing that non-dairy creamer now adds more calories to US coffee than sugar or milk.
In Numbers
- Net revenue: $37.2 billion in fiscal 2025, up 3 percent
- Fourth-quarter revenue: $9.6 billion in fiscal 2025, up 5 percent
- Stores: 40,990 worldwide at September 28, 2025
- Employees: about 381,000 worldwide, including about 223,000 in the United States (September 2025)
- Markets: 89 (fiscal 2025)
Leadership
Brian Niccol is chairman and chief executive officer, roles he has held since September 2024. He joined from Chipotle Mexican Grill.
Cathy Smith is chief financial officer. Mellody Hobson, the former chair, is lead independent director of the board.
