Starbucks tumbles most in 6 months

Bloomberg

Starbucks Corp.’s US slowdown has gone global.
The coffee chain posted disappointing sales growth in all its major regions, signalling that it now has bigger problems than an overly saturated US market. The results from the quarter that ended on December 31 sent shares down the most in six months.
“Our holiday merchandise and limited-time offers did not perform up to expectations,” CEO Kevin Johnson said. In the US, the chain also saw “a little bit of softness in the afternoon, which may be a reflection of fewer people out shopping.”
While Starbucks expanded its holiday gift items this year to include tech gadgets and small games, sales of those products were weak, he said.
Starbucks also may be seeing more competition from fast-food chains that are heavily pushing value menus—McDonald’s recently began advertising cappuccino, mocha coffees for just $2. And the java giant has fewer wide open spaces to expand into, now that coffee culture have spread to most of the world.
Starbucks global same-store sales rose 2 percent last quarter, missing the 3 percent average of analysts’ estimates, according to Consensus Metrix. Comparable-store sales also trailed projections in the Americas region, which includes the US. And they actually declined in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.