Key Stats for Starbucks Stock
- 52-Week Range: $79 to $109
- Current Price: $95
- Street Mean Target: $106
- Street High Target: $137
- Analyst Consensus: 12 Buys / 5 Outperforms / 16 Holds / 2 Underperforms / 2 Sells
- TIKR Model Target (Dec. 2030): $136
Starbucks Stock Posts Strongest Same-Store Sales in Three Years as the Niccol Turnaround Shifts Gear
Starbucks Corporation (SBUX) reported second-quarter fiscal 2026 results in late April that marked the clearest evidence yet of a genuine business turn: global comparable-store sales grew 6.2%, North America comps accelerated to 7.1%, and earnings per share rose 22% year over year to $0.50, the first quarter of simultaneous top- and bottom-line growth in more than two years.
The quarter’s most important number was not the comp figure itself but what drove it: transaction growth in North America exceeded 4 percentage points, a level not seen since fiscal 2022.
CEO Brian Niccol has described the last 18 months as a staged rebuild, and the Q2 data is the first print where the sequencing he outlined is visible across all segments simultaneously.
“We said we will grow the top line first, and margin and earnings growth would follow,” Niccol told investors. “Q2 is proof our strategy is working.”
Morning dayparts in U.S. company-operated stores have recovered to roughly fiscal 2022 levels, and delivery revenue is growing more than 30% year-to-date across the U.S. company-operated portfolio.
The Starbucks Rewards program reached a record 35.6 million 90-day active members in Q2, up 4% year over year, bucking the typical sequential seasonal decline seen in prior years.
The company also completed its sale of a controlling stake in Starbucks China to Boyu Capital shortly after quarter end, a transaction Starbucks values at more than $13 billion in total, including the net present value of ongoing licensing economics, with approximately $3.1 billion in gross cash proceeds received.
At the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in late May, Niccol stated the company is “ahead of schedule” on its turnaround, and CFO Cathy Smith confirmed that the number of identified cost savings in the $2 billion program has continued to grow.
SBUX Analysts See the Inflection but the Consensus Is Not Bought In Yet
The EBITDA trajectory is where the investment case gets sharp.
After three consecutive years of EBITDA contraction, with EBITDA falling 27.1% in the June 2025 quarter, falling 22% in the September 2025 quarter, and falling 8.5% in the December 2025 quarter, the March 2026 quarter printed 10.5% growth.
The Street now expects EBITDA to grow around 7% in the June 2026 quarter, accelerating to around 14% in September 2026, around 16% in December 2026, and around 13% in March 2027.
The mechanism behind that acceleration is not mysterious: Green Apron Service investments annualize in August, removing a significant labor cost headwind from the comparison base, while coffee price tailwinds and tariff relief are expected to flow through cost of goods sold in the back half of fiscal 2026.
EPS confirms the same direction: after printing $0.50 in the March 2026 quarter, the Street sees EPS growing around 29% year over year in June 2026, around 30% in September, and around 36% in December.
Despite that trajectory, the analyst distribution is cautious: 12 Buys, 5 Outperforms, 16 Holds, 2 Underperforms, and 2 Sells, with a mean price target of around $106, implying only around 11% upside from the current price.
TD Cowen, which upgraded SBUX to Buy in mid-May with a price target of $120, characterized the company as being in “early innings” of a North American revitalization with “greater longevity” than consensus was pricing in.
The analyst disagreement is structurally about margin durability: the majority is watching whether the North American operating margin, which contracted to 10.2% in Q2 from 11.6% a year earlier, can recover as labor investments annualize.
The hold-weighted consensus appears anchored to near-term margin compression and not yet pricing in the compounding effect of the cost program, the loyalty platform expansion, and the afternoon daypart opportunity that management has only just begun to develop.
Starbucks stock, at $95 against a Street mean of $106 and a high target of $137, is priced for a slow, uncertain recovery, not for the durable multi-year margin expansion the EBITDA trajectory now suggests. That gap makes SBUX undervalued against the fundamental evidence.
Starbucks Stock’s Revenue Is Accelerating but Gross Margin Compression Is Eating the Gains
Starbucks stock’s total revenues grew 8.8% year over year in the March 2026 quarter to $9.53 billion, the strongest top-line growth rate in the eight-quarter window shown, and a sharp reversal from the contractions of 0.6%, 3.2%, and 0.3% seen across fiscal 2024.
Gross profit in the same quarter came in at $1.91 billion, a 3.6% year-over-year increase, but gross margins compressed to 20.1%, down from 22.8% a year earlier and well below the 27.9% level of two years ago, as product costs and tariff-related inflation outpaced the revenue rebound.
Operating income reached $0.80 billion in the March 2026 quarter, a 21.9% year-over-year improvement, but at an 8.4% operating margin, it remains nearly half the 15.8% margin the business carried in the June 2024 quarter before Niccol’s staffing investments began flowing through the P&L.
The eight-quarter operating income trough of $0.66 billion at a 7.5% margin in March 2025 now looks like the floor, with four consecutive quarters of sequential recovery since, but the pace of gross margin restoration will determine how quickly operating leverage translates revenue growth into meaningful earnings expansion.
Is Starbucks Stock Undervalued in 2026? The TIKR Model Says Yes, With Conditions
TIKR’s base case values Starbucks stock at approximately $136 by September 2030, implying around 43% total return from the current price of $95, or roughly 9% annualized over 4.3 years.
If revenue grows at around 4% annually and net income margins expand to approximately 10%, the model produces a stock price of around $172 by September 2034 with an annualized return of around 7%.
If margin expansion stalls or top-line growth remains at the lower end of guidance, the low-case scenario produces a stock price of around $140 with an annualized return of around 5%.
If the afternoon daypart build and unit growth acceleration both materialize ahead of plan, with net income margins reaching approximately 10%, the high-case scenario produces a stock price of around $204 and an annualized return of around 10%.
The condition that separates these outcomes is the same one the Street is debating: whether the North American margin trajectory sustains as Green Apron investments annualize and cost savings flow through the P&L at scale.
Is Starbucks stock a buy right now?
Starbucks stock trades around $95, against a TIKR model base-case target of approximately $136, implying around 43% total return.
The Street’s mean target of $106 reflects a more cautious consensus still anchored to near-term margin compression.
The buy case depends on whether North American operating margins recover as the $500 million in labor investments annualize from August and the $2 billion cost savings program accelerates through 2027 and 2028.
Should You Invest in Starbucks Corporation?
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