Starbucks shares are sliding after the company reported lower-than-expected sales
After the market close on Thursday, the coffee retailer announced that it earned $5.24 billion in fiscal-third-quarter revenue, missing the forecast for $5.34 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Its global comparable store sales - at locations open for at least one year - rose 4%, lighter than the forecast for 5.4%.
But its adjusted earnings per share matched Wall Street's forecasts, at $0.49 - a record.
The company said the active membership of its rewards program increased 18% year-on-year, and now has more than 12 million people in the US and Canada.
Earlier this year, Starbucks tweaked the program so that customers can earn rewards based on the dollar amounts they spend instead of on visits. That didn't go down too well with some customers, as public sentiment towards the company fell, according to YouGov BrandIndex.
Shares fell by as much as 5% in after-hours trading.
"As we enter Q4 and approach fiscal 2017, we have clear line of sight to returning our U.S. business to historic levels of comp sales growth which had been at or above 5% for the 25 consecutive quarters prior to Q3," said CEO Howard Schultz in the earnings statement.
More to come ...