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Bloomberg
Starbucks said it’s reopening its stores in Shanghai after a wave of Covid-19 infections and government lockdowns hurt its business in key Chinese market.
The Seattle-based company has reopened 600 of its 940 stores in the city, a spokeswoman said by email. Starbucks is moving quickly to restart business there on just the third day of Shanghai’s official reopening. Most Starbucks locations are offering mobile ordering only, but the company said it’s working to begin in-store dining soon.
The reopening comes not a moment too soon for Starbucks, with analysts projecting its same-store sales in China
to plummet 23% in the fiscal year ending in early fall, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Starbucks has called China one of its two key growth markets, along with the US, and the virus has severely hurt sales in that market with on-and-off government restrictions for more than two years. The company has about 5,600 stores in the country overall.
With Howard Schultz at the company’s helm again, China is among the question marks in investors’ minds.