Mar. 16—US Coffee chain Starbucks, the company which has a joint venture with Tata Consumer Products in India, has announced that it is planning to open eight airport stores in six cities to expand its network in the country.
The cities are Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Goa, Guwahati, Jaipur and Lucknow, said a statement from Tata Starbucks, which is a 50:50 joint venture between Tata Consumer and Starbucks Corporation.
In January this year, Starbucks forayed into six new cities in India, marking its single-largest store expansion in a year.
In an interview earlier, Tata Starbucks CEO Sushant Dash said, the company's expansion plans have been very aggressive. "In fact, if there is one headline that I would look at from the last 12 months is the rapid expansion that we have done in terms of the store count and the number of cities we have entered. In fact, over the last 12-13 months, we have opened 51 new outlets, which is the highest single number of stores that we have opened by far," he said.
Commenting on the current expansion across airports, Dash said this year has been fruitful for the company in terms of expansion.
"Between December and January, we marked our biggest expansion by entering six new markets and now with the opening of eight new airport stores, we are echoing our commitment to evolve our brand and business in India to provide new and meaningful experiences to our customers," he said.
The airport stores will offer customers a wide range of items and will also bring My Starbucks RewardsTM loyalty programme. Tata Starbucks currently operates 258 stores across 26 cities in India.
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