Mumbai, Sep 28: Seattle-based coffee chain Starbucks, which had brewed an equal partnership with the Tatas early this year, on Friday said it will open the first store in south Mumbai by October-end.
While announcing the 50:50 joint venture late January this year, involving an initial investment of Rs. 400 crore between Tata Global Beverages and Starbucks, the partners had said they would open the first outlet by August-September, and 50 stores by the year end. Now the first cafe opening has been pushed to October-end.
According to the initial plan, the company had also said the café would come up in Delhi too, before the end of the year. But on Friday they said the Delhi rollout will happen by early next year.
“I don't see this as a delay. As we work very closely in the partnership that we enter the market in a right way. We have been aggressively finding the right location. There are other stores that we have planned for, besides the first one at south Mumbai's Horniman Circle area,” Starbucks China and Asia-Pacific president John Culver told reporters on Friday.
However, Culver repeatedly parried a direct answer as to how many stores would be opened in the city in the first phase, saying “we will be opening a series of stores.”
“We are going to be thoughtful on how we grow but at the same time we will be thinking about accelerating growth and capturing the opportunity that exists here.”
“We will open stores and monitor consumer response. We will open a series of stores in Mumbai and then in Delhi. It is not so much about the number of stores that we open but how we open the individual store,” Culver said.
