Starbucks Is Basically a China Stock Now
- Chain’s same-store sales there up 1% for a second quarter
- Competition rising as it opens new China store every 15 hours
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As China goes, so goes Starbucks.
The chain, which helped introduce Americans to European coffee culture, is under pressure from Wall Street to do the same in China. It’s opening stores at a rate of nearly 600 a year, but an economic slowdown there, exacerbated by the trade war with the U.S., have curbed its previously breakneck sales growth.