(Boursier.com) — The American coffee chain Starbucks announced Tuesday evening after the close of Wall Street sales slightly above analysts’ expectations for its second fiscal quarter, despite the fall in sales in China linked to strict containment measures taken to fight the Omicron wave of the coronavirus.
In the post-session quotations on Wall Street, the Starbucks title however reacted positively, up more than 5% on Tuesday evening, welcoming the group’s good results on the American market. Thus, while same-store sales in China fell 23%, they were offset by a 12% increase in North America, where the restrictions against Covid-19 were on the contrary lifted.
For the second fiscal quarter ended at the end of March, the group’s net profit reached 674.5 million dollars, a slight increase of 2.2% over one year. Adjusted earnings per share were 59 cents per share, in line with market expectations. Revenue rose 14% to $7.64 billion as the company opened 313 net new stores in the quarter. Analysts had forecast quarterly revenue of $7.6 billion.
Same-store global sales rose 7% in the second quarter, while analysts polled by Refinitiv had forecast growth of 7.1%.
2022 forecasts suspended, targeted salary increases
Starbucks said it was backing away from making a forecast for its 2022 fiscal year, citing lockdowns in China, inflation and planned investments in its stores and employees.
The group thus announced that it would raise the salaries of its permanent employees and would double its training efforts for new employees, in order to respond to the desires of its baristas to create unions. Starbucks will spend a billion dollars on salary increases, training and improving the work environment. However, the approximately 50 cafes whose employees have unionized will not benefit from these measures, management said.
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