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Starbucks earnings preview: Tariff uncertainty could overshadow new CEO Brian Niccol’s turnaround plan

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Starbucks (SBUX) is set to release a crucial earnings report after the market close on Tuesday as President Trump’s trade war threatens to hinder new CEO Brian Niccol’s turnaround plan at the coffee giant.

Here’s what Wall Street analysts expect from the company’s results, according to Bloomberg consensus estimates:

Adjusted earnings per share: $0.49 vs. $0.68 in Q2 2024

Revenue: $8.8 billion vs. $8.8 billion in Q2 2024

Same-store sales growth: -0.6% vs. -4% in Q2 2024

After joining the company from Chipotle (CMG) last fall, Niccol set into motion a turnaround plan at Starbucks as the coffee giant floundered in recent years, both in the US and abroad.

Niccol’s plan has included speeding up service and cutting back Starbucks’ menu to focus on core coffee products, as well as winning back customers in China, an increasingly competitive international market.

In January, Starbucks surpassed Wall Street’s relatively low expectations for its fiscal first quarter earnings results. Still, the company reported same-store sales — a closely watched metric that includes results only from stores open for more than a year — fell 4% during the period on a 6% drop in traffic and 3% increase in the average ticket.

During the first quarter, same-store sales fell 6% in China, an improvement on the 14% drop seen in the country during each of Starbucks’ two previous quarters.

“The top-line environment for the restaurant industry has been challenged so far in 2025 and we suspect Starbucks has not been immune to those issues,” Guggenheim analyst Gregory Francfort, who holds a Neutral rating on the stock, wrote in a note to clients on Monday. Francfort cut his price target on the stock to $83 from $95.

“Ongoing competitive intrusion from coffee and tea chains (including [Chinese tea chain Chagee] which went public in the U.S. less than two weeks ago), potential pushback to American brands in China, and macro pressures on the consumer from a trade war all add downside risks to comps in the international segment,” Francfort added

TD Cowen analyst Andrew Charles also cited “a broad based deterioration of Western brands’ perceptions” as a damper on Starbucks in addition to the potential for waning American consumer sentiment toward the pricier brand amid US recession concerns. Charles holds a Buy rating on the stock and $102 price target.

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