Starbucks has sites on Bulgaria and Portugal

Starbucks plans to open coffee houses in Bulgaria and Portugal next year. The first Bulgarian store will open in the capital city of Sofia, and the first store in Portugal is expected to open in Lisbon, the Seattle-based coffee chain said on Wednesday.

The company did not specify when the stores will open in 2008. Starbucks will work with joint-venture partners in Greece and Spain that help run the company's coffee houses in several other European countries. Its Bulgaria stores will be operated with Athens-based Marinopoulos Group, Starbucks' partner for stores in Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Switzerland and Austria. The expansion into Portugal will fall under Starbucks' partnership with Madrid-based Grupo VIPS, which helps run stores in Spain and France.

Starbucks has more than 15,000 coffee shops worldwide, about 4,300 of them in 42 markets outside the United States.

Source: Dow Jones