Forget going on a coffee run. Having your doppio espresso macchiato or pumpkin spice latte delivered to your office or apartment is about to become a reality.
Coffee giant Starbucks (SBUX) will begin offering delivery at a quarter of its nearly 8,000 U.S.-based stores in early 2019 in partnership with Uber Eats, the company’s COO Roz Brewer announced.
This summer, Starbucks began piloting Starbucks Delivers in Miami using Uber Eats.
“It’s receiving high remarks,” Brewer said.
Delivery has also been big in China, which is Starbucks’s fastest growing market. Three months ago, Starbucks announced a partnership with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (BABA). Part of that partnership included delivery of Starbucks using Alibaba’s on-demand food delivery platform Ele.me, which outfitted its fleet of bikes to carry the beverages. After piloting in Beijing and Shanghai, Starbucks has now expanded to 2,000 stores across 30 cities in China.
On Thursday in New York, Starbucks hosted its investor day, which is held every two years. This is the first one where CEO Kevin Johnson is running the show after Howard Schultz, the company’s long-time visionary leader, stepped down from his role as executive chairman back in June. Johnson, along will members of his leadership team, including COO Roz Brewer and new CFO Patrick Grismer, provided an update on Starbucks’s plans for 2019.
In the last year, Johnson’s team has focused on streamlining the business in three areas: retail market alignment, business simplification, and establishing a global coffee alliance with Nestlé. Johnson announced the fourth initiative for the streamlining plan, which is “to increase the velocity of innovation.”
Shares of Starbucks were last trading up less than 1% at $66.65 per share. The stock is up about 15% year-to-date.
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Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
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