Starbucks Corp. in the US also announced last month it will close 600 company-operated stores in the next year, up dramatically from its previous plan for 100 closures, a sign the coffee shop operator is still feeling the pain from the faltering U.S. economy.

Starbucks said in a statement that 70 percent of the stores to be closed were opened after the start of 2006. The locations set to close include ones that "were not profitable and not projected to provide acceptable returns in the foreseeable future," it said.

About 12,000 workers will be affected by the closings, which are expected to take place over the next year, according to Valerie O'Neill, a spokeswoman for the company.

In Malaysia it is still the favorite for coffee lovers who fills the shops sipping coffee while browsing on their laptops at shopping malls in Damansara or Ampang. 

It is a popular culture in many Asean countries where expansion took a real surge from 2006 onwards. There are little indications yet that the Jewish owned company will eventually close shops in the region too.

In Australia, Starbucks hit a roadblock trying to export its business model to Australia, a robust coffee culture where customers already knew the difference between a macchiato and an affogato, local traders say.

Starbucks Asia Pacific president John Culver was more forthcoming about why the company was on the retreat in Australia, eight years after opening its first store in Sydney.

"I think what we've seen is that Australia has a very sophisticated coffee culture," he said in a newspaper interview.

A wave of post-war immigrants from Turkey, Greece and particularly Italy means that for decades Australians had been enjoying the "coffee experience" Starbucks virtually created from scratch in the United States.

Both Sydney and Melbourne have Italian enclaves lined with cafes where old men sip espressos at outdoor tables through the day and trendy young couples gather in the evening for a caffeine fix.

Starbucks' idea of making itself a "third place" in customers' lives between home and work was a novelty in the United States, where in many small towns cafe culture consisted of filter coffee on a hot plate.

But Melbourne cafe owner Jeremy Jenkins said the situation was different in Australia, where baristas have been plying their trade at steaming espresso machines since the 1950s.

"People come in our cafe because they know us and they know they'll get good coffee, we're part of the local community," Jenkins told AFP.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment