Thank you. Thank you, everyone. I'm Brian Harbour. I'm the restaurant and food service distribution analyst at Morgan Stanley. First of all, this is a joint forum here, so I just wanted to thank everyone for being here. It means a lot. And just a couple stats. Sorry if this sounds like an earnings call, but since 2019, we have 30% more investors here. We have 30% more companies, 65% more meetings compared to our 2019 conference. So thank you all for making it so successful, and thanks especially to the team behind the scenes that's organized all of this. And now I'm very excited. We're excited to have Starbucks here. Our... The new CEO, relatively new CEO, Laxman Narasimhan.
Well, you pronounced that really well.
I had some coaching, so thank you. Starbucks certainly needs no introduction. Actually, if you have any opening comments, then I'll turn it over to you.
Well, first of all, I don't see a drink, and this is our holiday.
Next year, we'll have Starbucks coffee.
I'll just start with that. It's a Doppio Espresso Macchiato , and it's, it's inside me now. Well, first of all, thank you all for being here. You know, Starbucks as a company is a very strong brand. We're focused on human connection, and I think the need for human connection is even more relevant today than it ever was. I've just come out last night of launching our values across our entire company. In fact, it's been a nine-month process of us landing the mission, the promises, and the values. And, you know, I joined Starbucks because at the heart of it, it's a giving company. You know, if you look at our... If you just look at our promises, the promises say that for our partners, we bridge to a better future.
For our customers, we uplift the every day. For the farmers, we ensure the future of coffee for all. For the communities, we contribute positively. For the environment, at our best, we give more than we take. And what that leads to at the end of it is, for our shareholders, it results in enduring long-term returns, you know, for our shareholders. I've worked in stores. I've worked in stores in, you know, many, many countries around the world, and particularly as you see the environment right now, you know, I've had an international career over thirty years, where you work across the public sector, the private sector, and the social sector, and it's clearly quite an intense environment out there. The headwinds and what you see there are actually quite large. And we, as a company, are a company that is a...
You know, we are against violence of any kind, everywhere and all the time. And we're clearly pro-joy and pro-belonging, which were two of the values we talked about as a company. We talked about craft, coffee, and what we bring, results, courage, belonging, and joy. And I think it needs to be said at this moment in time, because there's no question that what you see out there, the geopolitical challenges are large. There are clearly headwinds out there, and just as an example, what you see in areas of conflict with our business in some of those places. Additionally, what you see as a context is, and you've read this in the press and everywhere else, and everything that's going on, is you operate in an environment where the U.S. consumer is slowing.
And, you know, despite all those different headwinds, if you think about what we stood for and what we talked about, you know, a month and a week or so ago, about our strategy, which is the Triple Shot we invented with the two pumps. It's an extremely relevant strategy for the long term. So, it'll help us, in the long term, really realize a large amount of value for our shareholders, for our partners, for our customers, as well as for the communities and in question.
Okay, great. One thing I just wanted to address upfront, you know, you created a new committee on your board. Could you maybe talk about the impetus for that and how we should think about that?
Well, you know, first of all, I think as I've joined the company, governance is obviously front and center on our minds, and we think long and hard about it. And the board, Mellody Hobson, our Chair, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, who is the head of the nomination committee, and I, have been working very intensively on how we ensure that we make Starbucks, and we continue to make Starbucks, a paragon for governance going forward. And so, you know, in this world that we're in, there are a bunch of commitments that, you know, we've made, be it to the environment, be it to the partners, or be it to the communities that we live and work in.
And, if you look at what's coming with regard to the changes taking place in regulations in places like Europe, for example, particularly on climate, if you look at the assessments that we've been doing internally on us as a company, we felt it was appropriate to actually put a committee together that would actually oversee what we do in this entire space of environment, partners, as well as of the community and the community impact that we have. And so in our meetings in July and even in September, we agreed that we would actually put this committee together, which we announced, you know, just some time ago. We have Beth Ford leading it. Beth is, as you know, the CEO of Land O'Lakes, and she comes... She's obviously a uniquely capable and qualified person.
She provides the oversight for the community, for the committee. What she does, along with a nomination committee and a chair, provides us the ability to—you know, ensure that we're living up to the commitments that we have made. And so I feel good about it, actually, and it's going to continue to step up in governance of the company.
Okay. What surprised you most when you joined Starbucks?
The amount of coffee knowledge people had. It intimidated me, actually, because it was a. It's very, very deep inside the culture of the company. But on a more sort of serious note, what surprised me most about the place was actually how partner-centered the company actually is, the strength of the brand and what it really meant. And I think if I think a little bit about, you know, the commitment that we have made over time, the ability, the appeal for this brand globally is actually really quite large. And, things changed on Starbucks over the course of COVID. COVID was tough on the company, and I think as we came out of it, we recovered from it.
It was clear that with the right level of investment and with a focus strategically as to where we would go, we would have the ability to truly capture this limitless potential. So what surprised me in a very positive manner was what you had to work with.
Mm-hmm.
The strength of the partners, the strength of the management team, the base from which the business is starting, the international presence. But even though we were international, we were frankly not fully tapped, let alone international, even in the U.S. You know, if I look at what's going on in the South or Southeast and our businesses in many of these places, Tier 2, Tier 3 towns, the potential for this brand is actually really quite large.
Mm-hmm.
And so I think that if I look at food, it's an opportunity, it's an attached business to beverage. Still play. You look at the merchandise in the stores, opportunity. If I look at Starbucks Reserve over time, an opportunity. So there's many things, the digital piece of the business, which I know you'll, surely you want to talk about.
Mm-hmm.
It's really untapped in terms of the full play that we have. So I think there are several elements of this business that actually have a bigger play, and that is at the heart of the Triple Shot Reinvention with Two Pumps.
Mm-hmm.
Productivity, by the way, is the other one that-
Right.
I know we'll touch on.
Don't worry, we'll get to it.
I'm sure.
One more general question. I think your U.S. business did quite well in fiscal 2023. You're still driving traffic growth. You know, what do you think is... What do you think is kind of behind that, right? Do you also think perhaps there's just less likelihood for people to trade down to at-home coffee? What do you think has continued to drive that strong performance?
I think, first of all, if they do want at-home coffee, we are the number one brand there. So, you know, we have presence there with the business there, so coffee clearly is there. I think if you look at the U.S. business, what you now have is a business that, through COVID, has evolved enormously. I mean, it's got a digital footprint that is much larger than it was. There's a delivery business, which didn't exist, and I think we're just tapping the surface of it. If you just look at, you know, the different occasions when our stores aren't open and the demand that we have, and we know this through things that we've looked at and pilots that we've run, there is, in fact, further potential, which we haven't fully tapped into.
If you look at the afternoons, we still have play there, but we now have a business that actually is digital. The mornings are obviously the heart of the business. The afternoons, still at play. We still have geographical penetration in the U.S. that could be large. But we have a strength with our loyals, with our people who are on the app. We have 33 million people now, and it's growing every year. But when we see frequency going up, you know, we have a large number of people we have access to that are not in the 33 million that we haven't fully tapped into. But at the core of it is innovation, product. What is it that people come into the store for?
Mm-hmm.
Customization at the heart of who we are, the experience that they get in the stores and what that's about. And if you take all that into account and what the brand stands for, you know, the ability for us to deliver consistent quality, mostly, and I realize that sometimes it doesn't fully happen. Our ability to do all of that, you know, makes us very distinctive in this world. And so, that's what I believe is actually going on in the U.S. business and contributed to the kind of performance that we saw last year, where, you know, if you ignore the effects of foreign currency, last year, the FY 2023, we grew at 14%.
Mm-hmm. Yes. Let's talk about product innovation a bit. You know, I think, one thing you mentioned quite a bit last month was PM day part opportunities. So maybe, you know, talk about what kind of opportunity you see there, what we should look forward to in the next couple of years in the PM day part.
So, you know, if you just look at our business and, on the beverage side, it has shifted heavily to cold. But what we're seeing in the PM day part is there's even more potential, and it's going to be innovation that is going to be highly targeted that we bring in. We already have the footprint. There'll be a lot of people who will say, "You know, we're targeting the PM footprint," but we actually have stores, and we have the ability and the capacity to be able to do it, including the innovation. So the beverage side, it's really quite large. Possibilities are real. But in addition to that, we have a food attach opportunity. I mean, you know, this breakfast business, which I think we went into reluctantly many years ago, right?
All of a sudden, you know, it's a huge business, and, you know, we're selling a lot. And what we see from our customers is they would like all-day breakfast. They would like all-day snacking.
Mm-hmm.
They would like to find a way to attach, you know, our food to the beverages they buy. And particularly, as you think of drive-throughs or you look at what's going on with Mobile Order Pay , it's much easier to custom attach what we have. So I think there's a real play in the afternoon that we haven't fully tapped into yet, and that's going to require innovation. It's going to require digital. It's going to require customization. It's going to require attach. And, you know, we have the capacity and the ability to do it. It's an area for us that'll be a big growth opportunity for us going forward, too.
Do you have a different view of food than some of your predecessors? Because I think that's, you know, kind of ebbed and flowed over the years at Starbucks. What, what do you think about kind of the food opportunities?
I think, first of all, I don't think it's different. I think the customer has changed. You know, as you think a little bit about the customer going through Mobile Order Pay or through drive-thru, we're seeing attach rates that are quite high. I think in the U.S., it's two of five that are attaching. But it's not three of five , which again, would just fundamentally change just the size of that business. I mean, it's already a $6 billion business growing enormously, right? And the opportunity, though, is for us, and particularly as you bring in tools like, you know, the warming ovens that are more evolved and what we do with Siren System and how we think about, you know, things that we bring in, I think you have the ability to actually create an experience there, too, that's also more elevated.
So the innovation, coupled with what we're bringing in, in terms of the physical footprint, coupled with what we have a digital as well as drive-thrus and delivery, that is actually adding to the nature of this business, and it'll always be an attached business for us. We're always beverage first.
Mm-hmm. I was actually somewhat surprised by the stat that I think you gave, 85% of beverage sales are core products, 15% are seasonal/new. Has that always been the case? Do you think that'll, you know, change over time?
Yeah, I think it's a question of how you think about what core is, right?
Yeah.
So, you know, what is interesting about this, that you take a core espresso, and then you have things that you're innovating, particularly with customization. Customization business is really quite large. So think of it as a landscape on which you're painting or a canvas on which you're painting. And I think customization keeps our core at 85%. Obviously, the strength of core is really quite important. And what we do with the others, so the other 15%, is we're bringing people in with things that are exciting. And so you will see us continue to do that. But customization, and just today, we've just launched four new winter, you know, foams, cold foams that you can use for customization. You will see more there, in the way that we help people have core, but also bring a twist to the core.
Mm-hmm.
And then, of course, you have new products, and you have LTOs and so on, that we bring people in. So it has been so, but if you look at hot coffee, which is, again, part of our core, you know, the fact that we're rolling out the Clover Vertica is going to mean a much higher quality coffee-
Sure.
-that is delivered on demand. And, that's going to make the core hot coffee better as well. It's still an opportunity for us.
Right. Yeah, makes sense. Maybe let's talk about digital a bit. I mean, clearly, you have a very impressive digital business, right? I go into my local Starbucks, and it's clearly quite highly used, right? What... And you want to double it. So what's going to drive that? What's key to that, do you think? You talked about some of these partnerships. You know, what else, right?
Look, we're on a track, even if you just look at the current run rates. If we just sustain that, you get very close to that.
Mm-hmm.
So we're starting from a great base. Secondly, we're actually really changing the metabolic rate inside the company around digital and digital innovation. You know, we're into literally 30-, 60-, 90-day releases. The team has meetings with me every six weeks, and we look back and say, "What do we say we've achieved 30 days, 60 days, 90 days? Where are we at now? What's coming in the pipeline, 30, 60, 90?" And so there's a metabolic rate in the way the team is working together that is actually much faster in terms of the innovation that's coming. Some of the stuff you will see, and some of the stuff is actually behind the scenes-
Yeah
In terms of, you know, making a much better recommendation if you're out of stock or something, as an example. What's going to drive it is, first of all, just the... We have a huge universe that we're already in touch with. I think in the Investor Day, we talked about if you take globally, it's 75 million members of the Starbucks Rewards. You know, we have some kind of a digital relationship with over 300 million people, so the base exists.
Yeah.
Then it's a question of how you ensure that you make offers that make them attractive, attract them to come in, how you ensure that you deliver conveniently, which gets to the business model and how we evolve it. Mobile Order Pickup , as an example. It gets, then get into the level of customization that you're bringing in and then potentially what you do with loyalty-
Right.
particularly with Starbucks Rewards. I think this is where this partnership fits in.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we've already got a partnership with Delta, and you see what happens. You look at the week of Thanksgiving and the travel day that existed then, that week. The partnership with Delta obviously meant that there were specific offers to people who were traveling that week, as one example. We're going to announce two more, you know, one with a hospitality company and the other with another financial institution. That will actually give us further connectivity and base and actually increases value to our loyals in terms of the benefit that we provide them. There are digital businesses that we're incubating even on top of all of this, that will actually help us further scale what we do there outside the store. Different profit pools that are available.
I won't get into all the details on that, but all this actually tells you that there's a digital opportunity that is actually quite significant. It drives businesses to the stores, it makes people shop there more frequently, but it also gives us the ability to add more to what they do.
Mm-hmm.
That's at the heart of what we're doing. Now, in order to do that, you know, we're. You heard in the investor forum that we had, we're working on technology and how we rearchitect that. You know, clearly, the partnerships with, you know, with some of the leading, you know, providers in this space. We mentioned the partnership with Microsoft and Gen AI, the work we're doing with Apple products, and how we ensure we bring that into the partner experience, as well as the work we're doing with Apple on—sorry, with Amazon on payment. All these things put together actually tells you this is a brand that people want to partner with.
Mm-hmm.
and actually bring to life in a way that we can actually fully capture the digital opportunity as a company.
I think some of that also plays into just personalization. How do some of those partnerships and what you're doing today kind of help with personalization specifically?
First of all, the business is set up for customization-
Mm-hmm.
-which is actually at the heart of personalization in a physical sense. That's gonna get even more amplified as we think a little bit about, you know, what is going on with regard to, you know, with Gen AI coming in and how we sort of make all that work. We are still on a journey of how we learn more and more about individual customers. I mean, there's still work to be done. I think what it does for us is, you know, we're clearly ahead. You know, we, you know, we built Deep Brew, which is our platform, artificial intelligence and machine learning platform, which we built for five years. Quite forward, by the way, to think about when it was done.
Now, as you see this tech change, the architectural change that's coming, the work for us now is to how we then take that across all the data that we have, our partners, as well as, you know, our customers, and how we put together pictures that actually give us even more on what's going on with the individual customers. So that's the personalization journey we'll go into.
Yeah.
Which actually helps you come up with products that you can customize for yourself and make it easier to make offers that actually will make you even more loyal and just realize more value from Starbucks Rewards. That's the journey we're on.
Mm-hmm. Okay, makes sense. Maybe let's talk a little bit about just store operations and efficiency. What, what do you think has actually been most impactful so far in the past year? And then what do you think will be most important in 2024?
I think if you look at the work in reinvention, which made complete sense to me when I came, actually, when I joined, we went through the entire program, and the efforts all made sense to me. And I think you see that in the results from last year, just around the progress we've made with just reinvention. You know, we've invested something like $9 billion over the last three years with a combination of things that we put into stores as well as the partner experience. Almost a third of that is into the partners themselves, which is about 20% of the profit that we generate has actually gone into that, which has been a very good set of investments that we have made.
I think what you've seen there is, you know, we have been able to put in the stores some equipment that has been very helpful. Portable cold foam blenders, an example, help us with the customization of some of the foams, and we did it just before the summer holidays, so it actually played itself all the way through. What's coming, though, is what has been being built is, if you look at waste, we attacked waste quite systematically. There's $90 million of waste savings that we delivered just last year. There's more to come with that, but that was very powerful and good. But really the big thing was what we did with staffing and scheduling.
Mm-hmm.
You know, it was very clear to me, working in stores, that we could do better there.
Yeah.
How we match demand with supply, how we get more personalized in terms of what the partners want. We're not fully there yet.
Mm-hmm.
But if you just look at what we've been able to do, if I go back to 2020, to where we are now, right? Essentially, the take-home compensation has gone up for the partners by 50%, and we think by 2025, it's going to, in effect, from 2020, be double.
Mm-hmm.
Hours are a very big part of this.
Right.
The way we work it is actually quite important. There's a lot more stability, operational stability in the stores. You see tenure go up. It's almost up by a year, which is a lot for us. And so staffing and scheduling has been a big area of work. We're not fully there yet, and there's more to come.
Mm-hmm.
You know, what we are doing is, I mean, the level of math, the level of technology that's going into it. I mean, we have a large number of shifts around our network.
Yeah.
You've got people who want to work for 20 hours, and someone wants to work for 30, and someone wants... You know? So we actually—it's a very complex, you know, set of... Team's working really hard on how we unpack all that, so there's more to come. Looking ahead, actually, we should look above the store.
Mm-hmm.
You know, the $3 billion productivity program that we touched on, 70% of it is outside the store. I ran the supply chain for, for, you know, for six months, along with running the stores. You know, Rachel gives me no credit for that, I just want to point out. But by the way, I was actually running the supply chain, and by the way, attach rates went up and in-stock went up, Rachel, just so you know. In any event, we obviously got great talent in there, but why did I do that? Part of it was to really elevate that in the, in the company. You know, if I think about innovation and what we can do, lots of great ideas on what we do with tech and innovation, product has to be available.
Well, we can buy better, we can, you know, flow better, we can store better, and there's really work going in there. What is interesting in all that is we've actually put in place a muscle, in the company on productivity. That is, in fact, the engine of what's going to keep driving this going forward.
Mm-hmm.
It's at the base of what we call progressive margin expansion over time.
Mm-hmm.
Today there's a language inside the company around where are we at in ideas? Who's managing the pipeline? How do we go? There's a review every 30 days on it to say how are we making progress versus not. And frankly, I feel very good about the traction and the progress we're getting.
Good. If I look at a store with all the new equipment that you've talked about, are you running that with fewer labor hours? Are you well able to quantify that at all?
I don't think the focus is to run it with fewer labor hours. The focus is to optimize the labor hours to meet greater demand.
Mm-hmm.
So, you know, it's a throughput question. I mean, there's no question that I know, and we know this, that if I look at balk rates or what we have, what we call couch balk, people sitting at home or in a drive-through, coming into the store, looking at the line, saying, "You know what? I'm not gonna do this." We clearly have that.
Mm-hmm.
We're working to make it better.
At the vast majority of stores, would you say, is throughput still a pretty widespread limitation in your view?
I don't think it's all the stores, but I think it's in many stores.
Okay. Okay, makes sense. Just going to store about... This may be a dumb question: Why is the Third place model still important, right? Given you're mostly an off-premise business today, right?
Well, just think of it, right? I mean, let's look at what's going on today, right? There are people who are looking to find ways to connect, and they do come into our stores, by the way. They do come into our stores. And despite all the misinformation and despite all the over-hyping that is going on, people still come in. They want a place where they can have a warm connection, a conversation, frankly, get product and leave. I understand fully your point around saying there are several people who have moved their behavior into more drive-throughs or online, but the third place actually has quite a relevance, both physically but increasingly also digitally.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I, I keep using the story of my time in, you know, working in the stores in Beverly, in the South of Chicago, with a woman who was in the drive-through at 7:00 A.M. on Monday. I remember opening the window to deliver the customized hot coffee that she had wanted, and the, you know, window rolled down, and the woman was half made up and had the makeup there, and she looked at me with a combination of, you know, of anxiety, but also relief to see what she was getting. I just said, "I hope you had a great weekend, and I hope you have a great day at work." That moment mattered because I was probably the first person she was talking to all weekend.
So I think we cannot really take away from this idea that there is a point of human connection, and that's what this brand is about. That's why the values we have, the mission we have, the purpose of the brand is big in this, but digitally, we're able to do it, too.
Mm-hmm.
You know, with what we do with Mobile Order Pay and others, but, you know, messages that you get and so on, and we haven't fully tapped that out yet fully. So I think third place is a broader definition. I think we used to talk about the fact that people go to Starbucks to connect with others. The reality is, people rely on Starbucks to connect with themselves as much as then through that, connect with others.
Mm-hmm.
I think that's a broader expansion of what our mission is. And with that, you see the Starbucks at home and the moment of zen you have at home. It's the moment you have in the drive-through and what you do later on at work, with others as well. I think it's a broader definition of who we are.
Mm-hmm.
The classic definition of Third Place, it's a, it's a box where I go to meet someone. It's frankly not relevant anymore in this context.
Yeah. Okay, makes sense. I do want to talk about the cost and margin side a little bit.
Yeah.
You know, the margin side, you said historical margins could be in play over time, right? And I'm not going to put words in your mouth, but if I were to say, you know, 5% same store sales, roughly, maybe 3%-5% cost inflation over time, do you kind of get there naturally? And you would say, "Okay, some of the $3 billion cost program that you've talked about adds to that." What, you know, what other pieces would I think about there?
I think what we talked about is progressive margin expansion, which comes from a combination of sales leverage, which is all the math that you have there. It comes from the productivity programs that we have, you know, which are broad. They are above the store as well as in the store. And also, you know, the further enhancements that we could think of the area of revenue management that actually help us overall with the progressive margin expansion. So I think, you know, as you know, we don't set a margin target or a time, but in the long term, I think you can clearly see how we would get back to the levels that you were talking about.
Yep. You sort of mentioned this, behind the $3 billion program, part of that is waste, part of that is supply chain. I mean, what are the other major initiatives we should be thinking about within that program?
In the productivity program?
Yeah, in the $3 billion-
Oh, yeah
... cost program. Yeah.
So as you said, 70% is above the store. That actually looks at everything from procurement to supply to, you know, the services that we provide and how we optimize all of it. And there's clearly more in the store, including waste, including looking at how we get much better at, you know, at bringing in the right equipment that helps us, you know, helps our partners, you know, do things more efficiently in the store. So it's literally a comprehensive program.
Mm-hmm.
Obviously, you get sales and sales leverage above that-
Yeah
... including the, you know, the GNA, which is, you know, we did make an investment in, in order to launch the program, and as our sales keep growing, you're going to see that number come down over time.
Right. Okay. Do some of your ESG initiatives help there, right? Like, I think you're starting to push more reusable cups. I mean, does any of that make a difference on the, you know, the margin side, for example?
We are embedding a lot of the sustainability ideas into how we do this. I mean, almost every single touch point that we have in the productivity program, there is a question around: How do you ensure that sustainability is built into what we do? So it will have an impact there.
Right.
Waste reduction, for example-
Yeah
... is a big way for that to happen.
Okay. Okay. I do want to talk about China a little bit. I, I think we've all gotten the message that the business is very different than, you know, four years ago, and certainly, there's a drastically different number of stores there.
Yeah.
You know, today it's lower volume, it is lower margin. You're still kind of in a recovery phase there. What? So we know what your store expansion target is. You know, what else do you think is really gonna drive China on, you know, a same-store basis, perhaps, over the next several years?
Well, firstly, it is a different business from where it was pre-COVID. You know, we went to China in 1999 with the idea of actually working to create this specialty coffee industry and a tea-drinking country, massive tea-drinking country. You know, I heard people talk about how the next China is China. We actually subscribe to that view. And so if you look at where we've gotten after 24 years, we've gotten them to 12 cups per capita. Japan's at 280, which has a big history of tea-coffee drinking, you know, over the years, and the US is at 380. So we're still in the early days. If you look at where we are, you look at our store count, and of course, the stores there are different from here in so many ways.
You know, we 65% of our stores today were not there pre-COVID, so clearly, it's a different network. We have a digital business that we didn't have before. We have a delivery business that we didn't have before. We have that now. And so it is, in fact, a very different business.
Mm-hmm.
Now, we have a premium brand. Actually, we have two premium brands. We have Starbucks, and we have Starbucks Reserve, both brands in China, and both extremely well regarded as sort of premium propositions in China. And, you know, we haven't fully penetrated where we could be, which, you know, we're now in 800 county cities out of 3,000. Shanghai, we have 1,150 stores. I've been to Shanghai. There are many parts of Shanghai we're not in yet, so there's even penetration in Shanghai, let alone Beijing and, the other cities in, you know, lower down in the place that we're in. Now, the fact is, you've read all the press on China and, about what's going on with the economy and how it is. And, you know, we, we see it too.
We see clearly that the recovery that we're seeing is perhaps half the rate of what you would expect it to be, given what you saw in the fourth quarter last year. So, you know, it's recovering and normalizing, but a rate slower than what you would expect, but the long term is very clear. You know, once you see China work through its challenges, I think you will see in the long term, it's a business that is very strong. It's a highly competitive market, do not get me wrong. It is more promotional now than it's ever been, you see more discounting and all of it. But at the end of the day, we deliver a premium experience, and, you know, the market hasn't tiered yet like it is here.
Right. Yeah. I mean, is it fair to say that in the near term, that's still sort of a choppy market for you?
Yes, it'll be choppy, and the recovery will be choppy, but it is normalizing at half the pace than what you would think it would.
Okay. Okay, understood. Outside international, outside of China, I think you've focused more on that, you know, in your time so far. What's... In your view, what was not appreciated there before? What are some of the markets that, you know, you're more excited about?
I think what was underappreciated, first of all, is that actually it is substantial. I mean, you know, a lot of our business is in the U.S., but, you know, I think we've talked about the fact that international and China are kind of in the same, in the same level in terms of, you know, the contributions over time. It wasn't so before COVID, but it is so now. I think what is underappreciated was the unit economics in many of these markets. They're actually very strong. Now, we have a different business model, so it's appreciated in a different way, but the unit economics were underappreciated. I fully recognize that, you know, we've got all these, you know, things going on in international geopolitics and some of the conflict countries affected at this point in time.
But if you look at the long term, the brand's very strong. Unit economics are really strong. The partner and the culture that's been built with our geographic partners, who we've had for years, is actually very strong. And the headroom we have in terms of what we could get to is extremely strong. And the headroom is large, pretty much across the board. Latin America, Continental Europe, where, you know, it's still early. I mean, it's surprising to say this, but, you know, we still are not really fully where we need to be in Continental Europe.
Yep.
And then you get into, of course, Southeast Asia, where there's a big growth play. You know, the coffee culture grows there. India, where the coffee culture is growing, opportunity there, too. And then you look at the Middle East and Africa, and notwithstanding the near term, but long term, there's real potential in play there, too. So I think what needs to be appreciated more is the fact that it is, in fact, the third leg of the stool for us-
Yep
... in many ways. And we haven't fully, you know, tapped into that yet. There's still more play.
Okay.
Digital is a very big part of this.
Yes, it seems like it's still quite early relative to some other markets.
Yeah, and the platform we're building, the Starbucks Digital Solutions, will help us essentially build this global network across all our different, you know, businesses globally.
Okay, sounds good. Before we finish up, I was gonna do my lightning round questions-
Yep
... we've asked of everyone here. Demand backdrop for the year ahead, relative to recent trends, accelerate, hold, decelerate?
Last year, we grew at 14% without Forex. I think the expectations we set in a month and a half ago were at the lower end of 10%-12%, if we ignored currency. So that will be slower than last year, and I think it's more back-end loaded in terms of the overall, but a stronger growth than the front end.
Makes sense. And then margins, we kind of know the answer to this, but up, down?
Progressively improved.
Yeah. And then capital allocation, prioritization between CapEx, buybacks, dividends, debt paydown, any change in relative importance of those?
We will invest in the business, OpEx, CapEx, as the needs are. Second, for a growth company, you know, and a growth stock, as you might call it, we've actually have a history over the years of maintaining a 50% dividend payout ratio. We intend to sustain that.
Mm-hmm.
Then the question of what do you do with the rest of the money, I think it depends a bit on cost of capital and what's really going on in the world out there as to, you know, whether we borrow to buy back stock or whether we pay down debt, and that's a calculation we always go. Just so you know, stock buybacks are a very small portion of the EPS growth expectations that we set. It's like less than 1% or 1% of the 15%+ that we've set in the long term.
Okay, great. We'll end it there, and, very much appreciated. Thank you.
Thank you. You didn't tell me what your drink was.
My favorite drink is... I like the Iced Shaken Espresso.
The Iced Shaken Espresso.
Yeah, with oat milk.
Okay.
With oat milk.
35 cal, the oat milk is a little higher, but that's okay. I think you can do with it.
I'm gonna do it.
Thank you so much.