The commercial war between China and the US has had an unexpected injury: Starbucks

Just a year ago we talked to Xataka of the delicate moment through Starbucks. A year later, the world’s largest coffee chain deepens the crisis of its business model, now trapped between those structural problems, which came from afar, and a new problem: Trump’s tariffs.

The current situation. Starbucks accumulates five consecutive quarters of falls In sales in the United States. Only in the last quarter, transactions fell 4%, although average customer expenditure increased by 3%.

It does not matter: that increase is insufficient to compensate for the loss of traffic in coffee shops if customers look for cheaper alternatives like Dunkin ‘or McDonald’s.

Why is it important. The company depends on coffee imported from more than 30 countries, and with The new 10% tariffshis commitment not to raise prices in 2025 further complicates the recovery of his margins, which were already down.

The context. What for years was an unstoppable growth story, tripling its premises from 2012 to exceed 40,000 in 2024, it has now become a struggle to maintain its profitability.

The United States, its main market, is saturated. And China, its great growth commitment, has its own problems.

• The US market shows clear signs of maturity with a growth of premises that has slowed down.
• In China, although it has almost doubled its stores in five years, income has stagnated, with flat interannual sales (0% last quarter).

The latter has a lot to do with Nationalist consumption That put local alternatives before.

The threat. Beyond tariffs, Starbucks has other open fronts around its business model.

Between the lines. The new CEO Brian Niccol, signing of Chipotle with music from Fanfarrias, has launched the Plan “Back to Starbucks“To recover the essence that made the company great.

However, he recently recognized that “our results of the second quarter are disappointing,” although he also said he “confidence that our plan is the right strategy to turn the business.”

The unexpected turn. Despite all these problems, Niccol maintains its commitment to freeze prices in 2025, a brave decision (and we will see if reckless) when their competitors will surely increase them due to the impact of tariffs.

It is true that this strategy could give it competitive advantage if it manages to control its margins on other ways, but it is also that these margins are increasingly constrained.

In figures. The financial situation explains the deterioration of the business:

• The actions almost 30% have fallen From the announcement of tariffs.
• Its adjusted operational margin of the last quarter was 8.2%, quite below the expected 9.5%.
• The benefits collapsed more than 50% compared to the previous year, to 384 million dollars.
• The company accumulates 23,000 million net debt, with a indebtedness ratio superior to triple.

The latest. Starbucks has already implemented several measures to contain costs:

• Elimination of extra charges for alternative milks.
• Reduction of customization options.
• Product discontinuation.
• Free recharges offer for those who consume in their establishments.

The question now is whether these measures will be enough in the face of an increasingly hostile economic environment, where consumption habits are changing and the experience that previously defined Starbucks no longer seems sufficient to justify their prices.

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