Starbucks Mobile Order Tool Accounts For 13 Percent Of US Sales

Loyalty and mobile continued to do some productive lifting for Starbucks in its fiscal third quarter of 2018, as those two factors contributed to an 11 percent year-over-year revenue increase, with sales for the coffee chain reaching $6.31 billion.

Starbucks did not offer detailed quarterly figures about its overall sales via mobile in the Thursday (July 26) release of its financial results. At the end of 2017, though, mobile payments accounted for 30 percent of the brand’s total transactions. However, the chain’s Mobile Order and Pay service, which Starbucks recently opened up to non-members, gained at least a bit of steam in the company’s Q3.

Those Mobile Order and Pay transactions now make up 13 percent of U.S. company-operated transactions, the company said in its financial report. That compares with 12 percent for the company’s fiscal Q2. In the fiscal third quarter of 2017, Mobile Order and Pay accounted for 9 percent of those transactions.

The chain’s loyalty program, too, showed gains.

Starbucks Rewards added 1.9 million active members during the company’s Q3, a 14 percent year-over-year increase. Those consumers have a notable impact on total revenue, as they account for 40 percent of sales at company-operated stores. That’s up from 39 percent in fiscal Q2 2018, up from 36 percent in the fiscal third quarter of 2017.

The overall revenue increase also came from “incremental revenues from the impact of our ownership change in East China, incremental revenues from 2,015 net new Starbucks store openings over the past 12 months, favorable foreign currency translation and 1 percent growth in global comparable store sales,” the company said.

Adjusted earnings per share stood at 65 cents, more than analyst expectations of 61 cents.

Broken down by region, net revenues for the Americas segment grew 6 percent year over year to $4.2 billion, thanks to “incremental revenues from 902 net new store openings over the past 12 months and 1 percent growth in comparable store sales, partially offset by the absence of revenue related to the sale of our Brazil retail operations to a licensed partner” during the chain’s second quarter of 2018.

In Asia-Pacific, net revenue increased 46 percent year over year to about $1.3 billion. In EMEA, net revenue increased 10 percent year over year to $275.4 million.