Suppose that Starbucks plans to use a similar formula to estimate the potential number of stores as the one used by McDonald’s (p. 195). In 2014, the total number of Starbucks stores in the United States was 11,962 (company owned + licensed). Thus, the number of people per Starbucks store in the United States would be around 26,865 (total U.S. population = 321.8 million). So the adjusted formula would be: Potential # of Starbucks stores = (Population of Country X/26,865) x (Per Capita Income of Country X/Per Capita Income in the United States).

a) Using the same formula, estimate what Starbucks’s store potential would be for the following Asian countries: China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines. Compare these to the most recent store count for each of these countries (the latest figures can be found on Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks or the Starbucks Annual Report available on the Investor Relations corporate website).

b) The formula that McDonald’s uses to estimate market potential basically relies on two factors: the country’s population and income. What other factors could be relevant besides these two, particularly in the case of Starbucks?