Coffee house giant Starbucks is on track to open its 1,000th store in Japan this summer after its first store opened 17 years ago, the company said.
According to a release from Starbucks, CEO Howard Schultz helped celebrate the opening of the Meguro location and the Starbucks Support Center in Japan last week. The Seattle coffee giant opened its first international store outside of North America in Ginza, Tokyo, in August 1996.
"Starbucks will continue to grow in a way that reflects our local customer and the communities we serve - through innovative store designs and formats, locally-relevant beverage and food offerings, continued investments to build an even more engaging digital experience, and an unparalleled in-store 'Starbucks Experience,'" Schultz said in a statement.
"We will soon exceed 1,000 stores in Japan, an important milestone in our development, and we are confident that there is plenty of opportunity for more innovative growth and development in this dynamic market," said Howard Schultzin Japan, in a statement.
Japan Daily Press notes that when Starbucks first opened in Japan, the coffee house concept was foreign to Japanese tea drinkers but over the years that has changed and competition has increased.
Starbucks has a total of about 18,000 outlets throughout the world. Following the United States and Canada, Japan will become the third country with more than 1,000 outlets.
According to the financial statement, Starbucks' Japanese subsidiary, Starbucks Coffee Japan Ltd., its sales stood at 116.5 billion yen (about $1.2 billion) in fiscal 2012. Its operating profits for the year came to 9.7 billion yen. Both figures were the largest ever for the Japanese arm.
