Starbucks Net Worth: Value, Dividends & Revenue of Seattle Stalwart

An entrepreneurial-minded American employee travels to Milan, Italy, and visits the local coffee bars. He comes back to Seattle inspired and amazed, probably unaware that he was about to create a global coffee giant. This is the start of the global coffee brand Starbucks, with a net worth of $107.43 billion.

Once a small shop selling coffee beans to take away, Starbucks pivoted its concept to coffee houses, inspired by Italian coffee culture. Today, it has over 30,000 stores all over the world and has seen some controversial boardroom moves in mid-2024 along with concerning stock price movement. Our experts at Business2Community have gathered the key net worth and other financial information so you can learn how Starbucks reached its current market cap.

What is Starbucks’ Net Worth?

Starbucks’ net worth, or market cap, is $107.43 billion, based on a stock price of $94.81. The company is traded on the NASDAQ and went public on June 26, 1992, when shares were listed at $17.

Starbucks stock peaked in 2021 at $117.21 on July 26. It has experienced significant drops over the years, often related to controversies around the Starbucks brand and management. 2018 saw a stock dip when earnings forecast were lowered and the company announced it would close three times the number of stores the following year than it had previously planned.

Meanwhile, in June 2022, stock was down 35% on the previous 6 months, compared to the S&P average of 20% over the same period. Concerns over the price of coffee and the slow return to normality in China were to blame. More recent dips in mid-2024 have been down to concerns over earnings following a boycott of the brand in some regions due to its involvement with commerce in Israel. With two quarters of declining sales reported in Q2 and Q3 2024, the board took drastic action and removed CEO Laxman Narasimhan and installed former Chipotle CEO, David Niccol.

Starbucks’ fiscal year ends in October and the company publishes its annual reports in February the following year.

Starbucks Revenue Data

In a legal dispute with Kraft Foods – later Kraft-Heinz – Starbucks had to pay a settlement of $2.75 billion to end a battle about prepackaged Starbucks branded coffee sales in supermarkets. This had a major effect on the company’s net income for the year. Meanwhile, 2o2o’s lacklustre profits were down to huge decreases in demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starbucks Dividend History

Shareholders have consistently received dividends from Starbucks for the last 15 years, with annual increases for the last 14 of those.

There have been 6 Starbucks stock splits, with the first in 1993 and the most recent in 2015. One Starbucks share bought on September 30 1993, before the first stock split, would be equal to 64 shares today.

Here is the most recent history of Starbucks’ dividend payouts:

Who Founded Starbucks?

Gerald Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl founded Starbucks in 1971. They had all attended the University of San Francisco and had different occupations. Baldwin was an English teacher, Bowker a writer, and Siegl a history teacher. While they shared a lot of common interests, one of them stood out: they all loved dark-roasted coffee.

Starbucks began as a small specialty coffee store in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, as the trio wanted their city to have access to good coffee and high-quality coffee beans. For their first two years, they bought green coffee beans from Alfred Peet, the founder of Peet’s Coffee. In 1973, Peet encouraged the founders to start roasting coffee on their own. He trained Jim Reynolds who became the roastmaster of Starbucks for most of its early years.

For the company name, the Starbucks founders were inspired by the Seattle seafront and Herman Melville’s classical novel Moby Dick. “Starbuck” is the first mate of The Pequod, the ship in Moby Dick.

In 1982, Howard Schultz joined Starbucks as director of retail operations and marketing. By this time, Starbucks was only selling coffee beans for customers to take home. Schultz’s 1983 trip to Milan, Italy was transformative – both for the coffee company and himself.

Impressed by the Italian espresso bars, he thought that there was a great opportunity for a coffee house concept in the US and wanted Starbucks to try it out. Eventually, Schultz convinced the Starbucks founders and the company served its first Caffè Latte in 1984.

Howard Schultz left Starbucks in 1985 to start Il Giornale, an Italian-style coffee bar offering drinks made from Starbucks coffee beans. Two years later, Il Giornale acquired Starbucks and changed its name to Starbucks Corporation. The same year as the Il Giornale acquisition, Starbucks opened its first store outside the US in Vancouver, Canada.

By 1991, Starbucks became the first privately owned US company to offer a stock option to its employees, both part-time and full-time. Its initial public offering happened a year later in 1992, priced at $17 per share.

Who is the Starbucks CEO?

Starbucks’ CEO is David Niccol, appointed in August 2024. Prior to Niccol, the Starbucks CEO was Laxman Narasimhan, who was appointed in 2023. Howard Schultz acted as the CEO starting from the 1987 Il Giornale acquisition to 2000 when he stepped down to focus on international expansion. He became CEO again from 2008 to 2017 to lead the company’s transformation.

Following less-than-impressive earnings for the first two quarters of 2024 and pressure from activist investor firm Elliott Management, Marasimhan was removed after a year in the role and replaced with former Chipotle CEO David Niccol. The change saw a bump in Starbucks stock since Niccol has steered Chiptole through scandals around food quality and it is hoped he can turn around Starbucks’ fortunes in China and the Middle East.

Below is a table showing all the Starbucks CEOs and the years they led the company.

Other Starbucks Tea, Coffee, and Beverage Companies

Starbucks owns several companies in the beverage industry, including tea, coffee, and bottled water companies.

Growth and Development of Starbucks

When it started, Starbucks was a tiny outfit selling coffee beans and equipment for home brewing. Today, the Starbucks is an essential part of millions of Americans’ days, offering a wide range of products, including espresso drinks, tea, hot chocolate, packaged beans, and accessories such as coffee mugs and merchandise. Over the past decade, it earned billions of dollars from all its products, with beverages making up the majority of the company’s revenue.

Below is a graph showing how the company’s earnings grew until the point where it made $19.56 billion from beverages in 2022.

Let’s dive into a full timeline of Starbucks’ history, covering the key dates, product launches, and global expansions, leading the company to the global brand it is today.

1971-1986: The Early Days of Starbucks

In the 70s, Starbucks stores sold fresh-roasted coffee beans in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Customers came to the store to buy coffee beans to brew their coffee at home. This went on until New Yorker Howard Schultz visited Starbucks in Seattle in 1981.

At the time, Schultz was working at the household product company Hammarplast. He noticed how a small Seattle coffee shop ordered an unusual amount of coffee makers. Naturally, he wanted to meet its founders and taste its coffee.

The first cup of coffee he had in Seattle was Sumatra, a dark-roasted coffee grown in Indonesia. From that moment onwards, Schultz became hooked on Starbucks coffee. He loved the company so much that he joined as director of retail operations and marketing in 1982.

A year later, he traveled to Milan, Italy, and visited the espresso bars. Seeing how important the coffee bars were in Italy made Schultz think that Starbucks was missing an opportunity in the coffee business. In 1984, Starbucks started testing the coffeehouse concept in Seattle. Howard Schultz left the company to start his own specialty coffee shop, Il Giornale.

1987-1992: Starbucks Becomes a Coffee House and Opens to the Public

Starbucks’ coffee house era began in 1987, when Il Giornale acquired the company. In the late 80s, Starbucks was both shaping the US coffee culture and developing its own company culture. It announced full health benefits for part-time and full-time employees in 1988. Two years later, in 1990, it wrote its first mission statement:

To establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles as we grow.

On June 26, 1992, Starbucks went public via an initial public offering, raising $29 million. By the end of the 1992 fiscal year, it generated $103 million in total net revenues.

1992-2000: Starbucks Goes Global and Expands its Products

As of the early 90s, Starbucks had airport stores, drive-thru locations, and shops in Los Angeles, New York, and other major cities in North America. It was time to expand further.

In 1996, Japan became the first country outside North America with a Starbucks location. In the following years, the company would continue expanding in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe, with new stores in Singapore, China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and more.

Besides launching new stores around the world, Starbucks started testing new coffee drinks, including Frappuccino in 1995.

In 1997, Starbucks launched The Starbucks Foundation, aiming to support youth literacy programs in the US and Canada. Since then, the foundation has become active in other countries where Starbucks does business.

The Starbucks brand became more present around the web, movies, pop culture, and grocery stores. In 1998, the Starbucks website, Starbucks.com was launched. The same year, American grocery stores started selling Starbucks coffee beverages.

2000-2007: Starbucks Starts New Programs

In 2000, Howard Schultz stepped down as CEO to focus on international expansion. Orin Smith acted as the CEO between 2000 and 2005, and Jim Donald between 2005 and 2008. During this period, Starbucks invested in sustainability, coffee education, and local communities. Here are some of the initiatives it launched:

• C.A.F.E. Practices: In 2001, Starbucks announced Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices, aiming to grow coffee in a transparent, profitable, and sustainable way.
• Farmer Support Center: As a part of the C.A.F.E program, Starbucks introduced farmer support centers in 2004, with the first one launching in San José, Costa Rica. Working closely with local coffee farmers, Starbucks agronomists help improve the quality and profitability of coffee beans. As of 2024, Starbucks has ten farmer support centers across Costa Rica, Guatemala, Rwanda, Tanzania, Colombia, China, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil.
• Starbucks Coffee Master Program: A training program training baristas and coffee experts, Starbucks Coffee Master Program started in 2004. Today, it operates under the name Starbucks Global Academy.
• New coffee cups: In 2006, Starbucks accomplished a new first in the coffee industry: paper cups containing 10% post-consumer recycled fiber.

Between 1996 and 2006, Starbucks experienced an extremely fast growth, going from 1,000 to 13,000 stores worldwide.

2008-2012: Starbucks Undergoes A Transformation

Starbucks’ rapid growth brought consequences. Its tall, automatic espresso machines meant visitors were no longer able to see the barista prepare coffee. Shipping coffee from overseas instead of grinding it in the store made the coffee lose some of its aroma. Uniform designs for all the Starbucks stores around the world created a boring image instead of a streamlined one.

All these combined with the 2007–2008 financial crisis lowered the company’s same-store sales for the first time. Millions of people could simply no longer afford to go to Starbucks for coffee.

In 2008, Howard Schultz returned as the CEO to lead Starbucks’ transformation and refocus its core values. Despite the costs, Schultz took 10,000 store managers to New Orleans for the 2008 North America Leadership Conference. There, they talked about transparency, accountability, and vulnerability, which turned out to be a valuable leadership lesson.

To move forward, Starbucks acknowledged its mistakes and created a transformation agenda. It included:

• Providing its employees with better training tools.
• Launching new products and coffee drinks.
• Renovating the store designs to reflect the culture of the country they were located in.
• Slowing down US store openings.
• Closing underperforming Starbucks stores.
• Focusing on selling the “Starbucks Experience” instead of just coffee.
• Streamlining the company’s organizational processes.
• Opening more stores around the world.

With the transformation, Starbucks adopted a new mission statement:

to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.

The coffee chain also launched customer-centered initiatives, including its first online community My Starbucks Idea (2008), social media accounts (2008), My Starbucks Rewards loyalty program (2009), an iPhone app (2009), and free unlimited WiFi in stores (2010).

2013-2018: Starbucks Makes New Innovations and Investments

From coffee tours to premium coffee tastings, Starbucks started offering more coffee experiences to its customers.

In 2013, the coffee company bought Hacienda Alsacia, its first and only coffee farm. Located in Costa Rica, the farm helped strengthen ethical sourcing efforts as well as acting as a research hub. In 2018, Starbucks began accepting visitors to the farm, organizing coffee tours in English and Spanish.

Another premium coffee experience launched in 2014, when Starbucks opened the first Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Seattle. Over the years, the company launched other reserve roasteries in Shanghai, Milan, New York, Tokyo, and Chicago. Howard Schultz called the roasteries “The Willy Wonka of Coffee”, referring to the show-like coffee experience they offer.

In 2015, Starbucks started serving cold brew coffee in over 2,800 stores. The same year, it reached a 99% ethically sourced coffee milestone, becoming the largest coffee retailer to accomplish this.

2018-2024: Starbucks as a Global Brand

Starbucks continued its social and environmental projects. It committed to hiring 10,000 Opportunity Youth by 2018, and 100,000 by 2020. Abandoning disposable plastic straws in 2020, it set a new green target for 2025: operating 10,000 Greener Stores around the world.

In 2022, Starbucks launched its Reinvention Plan, a three-year financial roadmap, aiming to drive an annual 7-9% comparable store sales growth, 10-12% revenue growth, and 15-20% non-GAAP EPS growth. In the 2023 fiscal year, the coffee chain increased its global comparable store sales by 8%, in line with the Reinvention Plan.

There are over 30,000 Starbucks stores in 80 countries around the world, set to approach 45,000 stores in 2025, and 55,000 stores by 2030. The graph below shows the pace of the Starbucks store increase between 2003 and 2022.

Working at Starbucks

Both part-time and full-time Starbucks employees get benefits including healthcare, stock, 401(k) contributions, paid time off, parental leave, and a 30% in-store discount. 64% of the employees who have reviewed the company on Glassdoor said they were satisfied with the company, and 53% said they approved its current CEO, Laxman Narasimhan.

On average, Starbucks baristas make between $16 and $19 per hour in the US. Additional pay is estimated to be between $1 and $2 per hour, including potential bonus, stock, commission, profit sharing, and tips. According to 41,000 barista salaries submitted on Glassdoor, the yearly salary for a Starbucks barista in the US is $33,000 base pay and $41,000 with additional pay.

Starbucks had a total number of 381,000 employees in 2023. It constantly hires in retail, corporate, technology, manufacturing, distribution, and production. Some common retail roles are barista, shift supervisor, and shift manager. Non-retail opportunities offer manager roles such as assistant store manager, store manager, and district manager.

History of the Starbucks Logo

The Seattle waterfront inspired the Starbucks founders to look for names related to the sea. They eventually picked Starbuck, the first mate of The Pequod in Moby Dick. Similar to the name, Starbucks’ iconic siren logo also takes its inspiration from the sea. According to Terry Heckler, the creator of the logo, the siren is a symbol of the allure of caffeine.

The first logo of Starbucks was brown, with a two-tailed siren holding her tail in both hands. It also had “Starbucks Coffee Tea Spices” written around the siren. When Howard Schultz’s company Il Giornale acquired Starbucks in 1987, the logos of Il Giornale and Starbucks were merged. The Starbucks siren got a more modern look, the sign “Starbucks Coffee Tea Spices” changed to “Starbucks Coffee,” and the brown background changed to Il Giornale’s color, green.

In 1992, when the company went public, the Starbucks logo zoomed in on the siren’s face and the tail was removed. Finally, in 2011, the company eliminated the “Starbucks Coffee” sign, as the siren was now famous enough to stand on her own.

The Future of Starbucks

After launching the three-year Reinvention Plan in 2022, Starbucks decided to focus on a more long-term growth strategy. In late 2023, it announced Triple Shot Reinvention with Two Pumps, a plan with three main priorities, which make up the “triple shots” in the name:

• Elevating the Starbucks brand: With purpose-driven stores like pick-up, drive-thru only, double-sided drive-thru, and delivery-only, the company aims to operate stores more intentionally and meet customers’ needs faster. It is also planning to develop more products and add popular beverages to the core menu.
• Strengthening Starbucks’ digital offerings: By 2028, Starbucks targets to double its 75 million Starbucks Rewards Members. Besides benefits with Delta Airlines, members will also get additional perks with a financial institution and a hospitality partner. Starbucks has also extended its business partners into the technology industry, collaborating with brands such as Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon. In the future, it will focus on nurturing these partnerships and working on building new products for Starbucks with their help. For example, with Microsoft, Starbucks plans to use generative AI for product development and personalization.
• Becoming more global: The company expects to have 55,000 stores by 2030, which accounts for opening 8 new stores per day on average. Overall, it expects three out of four new stores to be outside the US, with a specific focus on China, India, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. In China, Starbucks aims to have a total of 9,000 stores by 2025. In India, it plans on opening 1,000 additional stores by 2028.

The “two pumps” in the Triple Shot Reinvention with Two Pumps Plan refers to the two strategies the company will use to achieve its three priorities:

• Being more efficient: To create a more durable business, Starbucks is working towards generating $3 billion in savings by 2026. These savings will be reinvested and delivered to shareholders as returns.
• Fostering partner culture: Starbucks calls its employees “partners”, and wants to improve the “partner experience” to be one of the best retail industry employers. By the end of FY25, the company expects to double the US partners’ hourly income compared to FY20.

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