Starbucks Has Discovered Street Corners Without One Of Its Stores, Set To Open 1,500 More

If you’ve passed a street corner in your neighborhood and wished there was a Starbucks there instead of having to walk all the way to the next corner, you’re in luck: The company has announced it’s opening at least 1,500 new cafes as part of a broader plan to expand by 2017. Which means yes, Starbucks will be even more ubiquitous. 

Starbucks announced its plan yesterday to expand its presence in its biggest market, the Americas, by 13% in the next five years. All told on this side of the planet, it’s hoping to cut the ribbon on 3,000 new stores.

Part of the plan involves not just throwing up a store wherever, willy-nilly, but making sure the cafes are in spots most convenient for customers, reports the Associated Press. That means areas where traffic lights and signs all line up to make it easy for customers to say, “Oh, hey. There’s a Starbucks and I’m going to go there now.”

The rest of the world won’t be going without the caffeinated mermaid, either: Starbucks wants to make a big push in places like China, which is creeping up on Canada as the company’s biggest market. In the next two years, the company says it will have 20,000 stores globally, up from 18,000.

Even with all its success elsewhere, Starbucks is having a bit of trouble in Europe, and in the United Kingdom especially. It hasn’t recorded a profit in the UK yet after 15 years, and as such hasn’t been paying taxes. That country isn’t too pleased with the laxity in taxes and as such, Starbucks said this week it will reassess its tax plan there.

To that point, today the company announced it’ll pay a bunch of money in corporation taxes over the next two years in the U.K., whether or not it turns a profit, reports Bloomberg News.

Starbucks to open 1,500 more cafes in the US [Associated Press]

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