While Starbucks doesn't franchise its stores, they do license locations in airports and grocery stores like Target, which allows the company to expand while maintaining control over operations. However, there is one country where Starbucks stores are 100% company owned, and make up 15% of the company's global net revenue.

As of 2023, Starbucks fully owns 6,000 non-licensed stores in mainland China across more than 230 cities, employing over 60,000 partners. In 2017, the company bought out its joint venture partner in China for $1.3 billion, assuming full ownership of (at the time) around 1,300 stores, in addition to the 1,500 it already owned outright.

Starbucks announced in September 2022 that it plans to have 9,000 stores in China by 2025, meaning the company would have to open a new store every nine hours for three years. Starbucks has even opened coffee farms in China, bringing on local coffee growers to secure their supply chain in the growing Chinese coffee market.