Starbucks Rises Slightly After Q1 Earnings Beat

is up less than one percent in after hours trading after the company reported its first quarter results. The popular coffee shop reported a Q1 EPS of $0.71 versus the Street estimate of $0.69. Earnings per share were up 25 percent from the year-ago period, Revenue arrived at $4.24 billion versus the Street estimate of $4.3 billion. Sales were up 12 percent year-over-year. "Holiday 2013 was the first in which many traditional brick and mortar retailers experienced in-store foot traffic give way to online shopping in a major way," Howard Schultz, chairman, president and CEO of Starbucks, said in a

. "As our solid traffic growth and record Q1 results demonstrate, Starbucks unique combination of physical and digital assets positions us as one of the very few consumer brands with a national and global footprint to benefit from the seismic shift underway." "Starbucks strong Q1 results once again demonstrate the fundamental strength of the Starbucks business, particularly noteworthy given the continued economic challenges worldwide," added Troy Alstead, CFO and group president, who was also quoted in the company release. "Successful holiday sales around the globe drove healthy growth in comparable store sales which, combined with our best in class operations, drove another quarter of record operating results. Our continued ability to execute at this level gives us the confidence to reaffirm our aggressive growth targets for fiscal 2014." Starbucks' comp growth came to five percent in U.S. and the Americas, five percent in EMEA and eight percent in China/Asia Pacific. Like so many stocks that enjoyed a healthy 2013, Starbucks was down more than four percent year-to-date (at market close on Wednesday, January 22). The stock is still up more than 35 percent over the last 12 months.