Starbucks to open first India store in Oct

Seattle-based coffee chain Starbucks, which entered into an equal partnership with Tatas early this year, today said it will open the first store in south Mumbai by October-end.

Announcing the 50:50 joint venture in January, involving an initial investment of Rs 400 crore, Tata Global Beverages and Starbucks had said they would open the first outlet by August-September, and 50 stores by the year end.

Now, the first cafe opening has been pushed to October-end.

According to the initial plan, the company had also said the cafés would come up in Delhi as well, before the end of the year. But today they said the Delhi rollout will happen by early next year. "I don't see this as a delay. As we work very closely in the partnership that we enter the market in a right way. We have been aggressively finding the right location.

"There are other stores that we have planned for, besides the first one at south Mumbai's Horniman Circle area," Starbucks China and Asia-Pacific president John Culver told reporters here today.

Announcing the JV on January 30, Tata Global Beverages vice chairman R K Krishnakumar had said, "We will open the first store around August-September or even earlier. We are looking at Delhi and Mumbai for this. We will be opening around 50 cafes by the end of the year."

However, today Culver repeatedly parried a direct answer as to how many stores would be opened in the city in the first phase, saying "we will be opening a series of stores".

He did not admit that they are late with the plan.

Culver said, "We are going to be thoughtful on how we grow but at the same time we will be thinking about accelerating growth and capturing the opportunity that exists here.

... contd.

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