Tata Consumer Products denies reports on exit of Starbucks from India

Tata Consumer Products Ltd (TCPL) on Thursday denied reports on the exit of cafe chain Starbucks from the Indian market, terming them as "baseless". Tata in a 50:50 joint venture with US-based Starbucks Corporation operates a cafe chain in India under the brand name of Starbucks, which is the leading cafe chain in India.

Starbucks had 457 stores across 70 cities at September-end and the company aims to take it to 1,000 by FY28.

The company's revenue from operations was up 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 the expansion.

Its advertising promotional expenses were up 26.8 per cent to Rs 43.20 crore and royalty was at Rs 86.15 crore, according to financial data accessed through the business intelligence platform Tofler.

Last month TCPL MD & CEO Sunil D'souza told PTI that it will focus on scaling up the Starbucks cafe chain here and is not looking at store profitability.

"With Starbucks, we are very clear that the store profitability is not an issue. And as we get to scale, we know that we can generate profits out of it," D'souza had told PTI in the last week of November.

Starbucks was responding to reports that suggested that the American company was planning to quit Indian operations due to high operating cost, mounting losses, and availability of cheaper local alternatives in the market.

After this, the Tata group FMCG arm TCPL in a regulatory filing on Thursday said 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.