4 reasons Starbucks Chairman Views India as biggest biz ground

Starbucks, world’s largest coffee chain, which entered India in 2012, observes major business opportunities in India to unfold in 2016.

The group CEO and Chairman Howard Schultz was on a one day visit to India, and he sees India a land of opportunities and success.

"We see a major business opportunity here. In 2016, we intend to bring our speciality tea brand Teavana here, which we acquired in the US two years ago," added Schultz.

Four reason that motivates Starbucks coffee to expand in India:

Land of opportunity: As the country is welcoming new trends and brands, this could be the best time for any restaurant and cafe chain to spread their wings in a country, which is really getting them a good return. The coffee chain has been posting increased customer traffic for the last few quarters, despite the increase in prices of its coffee items. In Q4, the company witnessed a 4% increase in customer count, effectively resulting in 3% growth in the traffic for the fiscal 2015.

‘Millenials’ a growth booster: The Indian audience is overall responding very well to the influx of international chains in the market. Brands like Carl’s Jr, Burger King, Starbucks Coffee, Dunkin’ Donuts, are gaining customers’ attention by bringing in the new and tweaked menu as per  likes of the local customers’. Hence, it could be another reason for the cafe chain to target Indian market.

Digital disruption: With 2015 turning out to be the year of social wars and tech disruption, Starbucks, which is a youth centric brand can garner biggest traffic from the social media. And, as the tech-disruption gives an opportunity for people to get the food delivered to their home, the cafe chain is also focusing on growing its delivery business in India. "One of the areas where we have grown significantly and become the best-in-class is social media. We have built tremendous value in that, and we’ll bring it here next summer," Schultz added.

Rise of RTC and RTE products: As predicted by the industry leaders, 2016 will be the year of packaged food growth and this could give Starbucks an opportunity to build a significant presence in the consumer packaged goods segment where it sees a bright opportunity.

Starbucks operates in the country under a 50:50 joint venture with Tata Global Beverages and runs 75 outlets across seven cities under the label of Tata-Starbucks since October 2012.

Though the company had said at the launch that it would open 50 stores in the first year of operations, in over three years it has reached only 75.