What's not to like about Starbucks? Last year it earned $151 million, 77 cents a share, on sales of $2.3 billion, up 33% and 28%, respectively, over 1999. Thanks in part to higher prices and a 40% drop in green coffee costs, store operating margins skipped up to 17%. Store count, boasts Chairman Howard Schultz, will grow roughly threefold in the U.S. and overseas by 2005. Along the way, Schultz vows, sales and earnings will grow by 25% a year.
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