Starbucks plans to complete its U.S. rollout of mobile ordering and payment capabilities to company-owned stores by the end of September, Starbucks officials said Thursday, months ahead of the company’s previously announced goal of the end of the year.
Alongside the rollout, Android users will gain access to the company’s Mobile Order & Pay feature, said Starbucks Chief Financial Officer Scott Maw, while speaking at Goldman Sachs Annual Retailing Conference in New York. That capability had previously been available for Apple devices only.
The company’s accelerated investment in mobile ordering is a nod to the substantial gains it’s seen from the platform already. In July, company officials stated that mobile transactions accounted for 20 percent of the company’s sales, to the tune of 9 million transactions a week.
“We have a winner and it's running ahead of our expectations,” Maw said.
The coffee giant’s Mobile Order & Pay feature was introduced in Portland, Ore., at the end of 2014 and was later released to 600-plus units in the Pacific Northwest.
Starbucks stores have seen a “significant uptick” in customer satisfaction after launching Mobile Order & Pay, Maw noted.
Full-scale mobile ordering sets the stage for Starbucks’ next endeavor—delivery, which the company is testing in Seattle and New York City this year.
The company’s comp sales rose 8 percent in its Americas region during the quarter ended in June, which executives attributed in large part to its leveraging of new technologies.
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