“We anticipate the current COVID-related uncertainty to continue and repeat the view we shared on our Q3 call and our Investor Day, that while our long-term aspirations for China remain undiminished, we expect the recovery of our business in the country to be nonlinear.”

In context

“saw in China in Q4, where innovation, increased customer physical and digital engagement with the Starbucks brand and the relaxing of COVID restrictions, drove solid positive sales momentum and sequential quarterly improvement. The speed with which our business in China accelerated in Q4 and the strong positive correlation between Starbucks revenue growth and the relaxing of COVID mobility restriction reinforces our confidence in Starbucks' long-term growth opportunity in China. However, as you know, over the past few weeks, there has been a significant resurgence of COVID in China. With the resurgence has come renewed lockdowns and mobility restrictions pursuant to China's strict zero-COVID policy, including in many cities in which we operate, meaningfully reducing traffic in our stores. We anticipate the current COVID-related uncertainty to continue and repeat the view we shared on our Q3 call and our Investor Day, that while our long-term aspirations for China remain undiminished, we expect the recovery of our business in the country to be nonlinear. I'll spend more time on China in a few minutes. In fiscal 2022, we drove meaningful growth in our global customer base. In the U.S. alone, we grew our unique customers 9% year-over-year, and our U.S. customers are engaging more deeply with the Starbucks brand as evidenced by a 16% increase in U.S. Starbucks Rewards membership year-over-year to nearly 29 million members, up 5% over Q3. Today, Starbucks is connecting to more customers more deeply, both in the U.S. and around the world, than ever before, ideally positioning us to drive further acceleration in revenues and comps in the quarters and years ahead. Our performance supports our confidence in the ambitious growth agenda we announced in September, in which we will be adding roughly eight new stores per day, delivering best-in-class”