Alsea sees Starbucks recovery in Europe, Latin America remains growth prize

Alsea’s licensed Starbucks business reached 1,969 stores across 11 markets, and the split tells the whole story: Europe is stabilizing, but Latin America still looks like the more convincing growth engine. Mexico alone accounted for 942 units, while France had 261, Spain 198 and Chile 176, giving Alsea one of the deepest international Starbucks footprints anywhere in the system.

The first quarter of 2026 showed that the machine is moving again. Alsea said total sales rose 1.4% year over year, or 5.8% excluding exchange-rate effects, while same-store sales increased 4.1%. EBITDA grew 1.8% to an 11.8% margin, the company opened 32 new units, and digital sales made up 41.2% of revenue, or 7.8 billion pesos. Alsea also said it had 8.4 million active loyalty users, a reminder that Starbucks inside this franchise network is not just about cups sold at the counter but about repeat traffic, app usage and frequency.

Europe still matters, but it looks more like a recovery job than a runaway opportunity. Alsea said Starbucks in Spain showed a positive trajectory in the quarter, and World Coffee Portal said the licensed European business had gone through five straight quarters of like-for-like declines before improving in 2025. That makes the progress meaningful, especially in a market like Spain where Alsea also operates a 900-plus-square-meter Starbucks flagship inside Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. But Spain, France and Portugal are mature, highly visible markets; they are important for brand presence and premium store formats, not necessarily the fastest place to stack new units.

Latin America is different. Starbucks said in October 2025 that it planned to open 145 new coffeehouses across Latin America and the Caribbean, expand into six new cities and reach 1,000 stores in Mexico. The company and its 10 licensed partners already operated more than 1,800 stores across 26 markets in the region, with Mexico its largest Latin American market and its seventh largest globally. That is the kind of density that gives a partner like Alsea room to keep building without betting everything on a single turnaround market.

Christian Gurría said the quarter started well, driven by consistent execution and momentum from late 2025, while Ricardo Arias-Nath described Latin America as central to Starbucks’ story and one of its most dynamic retail growth regions. The next phase is likely to follow the same logic: Europe recovering, Latin America expanding, and Alsea leaning into the markets where Starbucks still feels like a growth brand, not just a repaired one.