Will Starbucks leave India? What Tata Consumer Products said

New Delhi:

Tata Consumer Products Ltd (TCPL) on Thursday denied reports of coffee chain Starbucks’ withdrawal from the Indian market, calling them “baseless”.

Tata, in a 50:50 joint venture with the American company Starbucks Corporation, operates a chain of coffee shops in India under the Starbucks brand, which is the leading coffee shop chain in India.

Starbucks had 457 stores in 70 cities at the end of September and the company aims to reach 1,000 by FY28.

The company’s operating revenue grew 12 per cent to Rs 1,218.06 crore in FY24.

However, its loss for the period widened to Rs 79.97 crore from Rs 24.97 crore in FY23 due to expansion.

Its advertising and promotional expenses increased by 26.8 per cent to Rs 43.20 crore and its royalties to Rs 86.15 crore, according to financial data accessed through business intelligence platform Tofler.

Last month, Sunil D’souza, managing director and CEO of TCPL, told PTI that he would focus on developing the Starbucks coffee chain here and would not look at the profitability of the stores.

“With Starbucks, we are very clear that profitability of the store is not an issue. And as we grow, we know we can make profits from it,” D’souza had told PTI last week of November.

Starbucks was responding to reports suggesting that the US company was planning to exit its India operations due to high operating costs, growing losses and the availability of cheaper local alternatives in the market.

After this, Tata Group’s FMCG arm TCPL said in a regulatory filing on Thursday that the information in the article was “baseless”.

Starbucks entered India in October 2012 through a joint venture with the Tata Group. The first Starbucks store in India was opened in the Elphinstone building in Mumbai.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)