Who Is Starbucks Canada?

With an increased popularity of smartphone, mobile payments are becoming a seamless and elegant way to pay in real life. Based on statistics of the year 2013, the number of smartphones in Canada had reached 19.2 million, which accounted for 55 percent of the country’s population. Moreover, 10 percent of consumers in Canada used their smartphones to pay bills, and 6 percent of them used smartphones to purchase goods and products. Given such mobile payments landscape in 2013, along with greater pressure from competitors such as Tim Morton, the management in Starbucks Canada is actively seeking possible innovations on the payment side, which can better fit Canada’s coffee retail markets. However, there are several important criteria that the management should carefully consider during the

As a result, the first consideration for Starbucks Canada is to research about the market shares of smartphones that are being used by Canadian consumers, so as to better understand the mobile payment platforms that its customers are using. From the chart shown on the right, we can observe that Google’s Android OS and Apple’s IOS combined for almost 80 percent of Canada’s smartphone market share. Meanwhile, most mobile payment solutions will only be compatible with certain operating systems, but not all. Therefore, the management of Starbucks should consider choosing a platform that has a large degree of openness and is compatible with best-selling smartphones, which will help Starbucks gain favor and popularity from Canadian consumers. In addition, although the increased openness can lead a greater total market size potential, it could also bring an increased lack of control over standards and products. Consequently, the management should also put more supervision to ensure quality and standards across it products and