Starbucks plans to open 12,000 new locations within five years to boost its number of coffee shops worldwide by almost 50 percent.
The US based chain is also adding more food to its menu next year, including organic soups, gluten-free breakfast sandwiches and a wheat-free cooked egg. Sometime in 2017, customers will be able to talk to the Starbucks app to order a latte instead of tapping their smartphones.
Starbucks outlined its five-year growth plans to investors about a week after it announced that Howard Schultz, who has built Starbucks into a global brand with 25,000 locations since first joining the company more than 30 years ago, would step down as CEO in April. Starbucks has been facing increasing competition from Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's as those companies add more specialty coffee drinks to their menus.
About 5,000 of these shops will be in China. The company said again that it expects China to eventually overtake the U.S. as its largest market, but didn't say when it expects that to happen. Today there are about 2,500 stores in China and more than 13,000 in the U.S.
Starbucks also wants to get more customers to buy lunch at its shops by offering organic soups and adding more sandwiches and wraps. An app update next year will use artificial intelligence technology to let customers order by voice and receive a message back immediately.
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