Exclusive: Starbucks CEO says three out of four new stores will be outside US

Starbucks will have three out of four stores in the next five years outside the United States, said Global CEO Laxman Narasimhan, as the iconic American coffee brand looks to expand, including in India.

In an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18’s Managing Editor Shereen Bhan, Narasimhan said the third leg of his “Triple Shot Reinvention” plan is to expand globally in a big way.

“The plan is to get to 55,000 stores over the course of the next five years, with three out of the four stores being outside of the US. India will also have a big role in this.”

Delving deeper into Starbucks' global expansion plans, Narasimhan said, "China's 10 are less than 10% of the overall revenues for us globally. The US is obviously a lion’s size of it, but we actually have a lot of other markets, about 86 countries. You have got to recognise the potential of the headroom we have in all of them as we build out this third leg of the stool. India has about 400 stores, but we have 38,000 stores globally."

On potential growth regions, Narasimhan said everybody thinks of Japan as a slow-growing market, but Starbucks has 2,800 stores in the country, and the number of stores in Japan is going to increase even further.

"We have some really beautifully crafted stores in Japan. And it does a phenomenal job of bringing the coffee culture to Japan. So Japan is a growth market in that sense."

On Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America markets, Narasimhan said "there is real headroom too."

"In the rest of the world, we are underpenetrated; we are underpenetrated in the rest of Europe. We have opportunities in the Middle East and Africa; We are not even really present in many markets in Latin America, there is real headroom too. So everywhere you look, there's a possibility. So what we're trying to do is ensure that we build the capabilities, we build a global mindset, we build a supply chain, we build the capabilities around store and store development, and we build 4,000 stores worldwide every year; every single store is designed by us."