Starbucks Reports Weak Earnings as It Tries to Woo Back Customers

Since taking over as chief executive of Starbucks last fall, Mr.Niccol has tried to come up with fixes for the many challenges facing the coffee giant.One of his top goals: Getting coffee to customers in four minutes or less.Four minutes might not sound so fast when you want a morning caffeine jolt, but even that goal is not as easy as it seems, Mr.

Niccol told Wall Street analysts and investors in a call late Tuesday after announcing the company’s earnings results for the most recent quarter.That showed in the company’s results.

While improving, revenues and same-store sales were still lackluster, as Starbucks tries to woo back customers that were frustrated with long wait times, among other issues.Global same-store sales slipped 4 percent in the first quarter of the company’s fiscal year 2025, which ended on Dec.29.

Declining traffic, a longstanding issue, continued to be a problem: Same-store sales in the United States fell 4 percent, and they fell 6 percent in China, the coffee chain’s second-largest market.While fewer customers came to stores, they spent more for what they did buy, which helped keep revenues flat from year-ago levels, at $9.4 billion, the company said after the market closed on Tuesday.The company’s net income fell nearly 23 percent, to $780 million from $1 billion a year earlier.Starbucks attributed that dip partly to investments it made in wages and benefits for store employees, as well as to its termination of the practice of charging more for nondairy products, such as oat and soy milks, in its beverages.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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