Starbucks Steeped in Froth

Meanwhile, Starbucks expects its profits to grow by 20% to 25% annually for the next three to five years. Assuming it could maintain that pace for nine years, the company will post annual earnings of about $3.92 a share as it reaches maximum store count.

If shares of Starbucks were valued at a more reasonable 15 times earnings as it reaches a global store count of 30,000, this highly optimistic and purely theoretical scenario would give its shares a price tag of about $59. At its current stock price around $37, that would give Starbucks a compounded annual rate of return of just 5.3%.

If the company found a new major concept to drive future growth, it might be able to retain a higher valuation even longer. The company has expanded its marketing efforts into movies and music, and just this week announced a partnership with the William Morris talent agency to help facilitate more deals.

"[Starbucks] will continue to grow its retail space, but it's also a company that will continue to evolve through all these special channels," says Nicole Miller, analyst with ThinkEquity Partners LLC (she holds a buy rating with $41 price target). "The company has unyielding brand awareness and numerous growth opportunities."

Still, Zackfia calls Starbucks recent moves in the entertainment world "interesting, but probably not material in the grand scheme of things."

Casey declined to comment on the degree to which the entertainment items have bolstered the company's sales performance.

"Entertainment will always be an enhancement to the coffee and retail experience that we have today," says Casey. "But it wouldn't be a main line of business. ... The big opportunity for us beyond the big, and growing, business that we have here in the U.S. that everybody's familiar with is the other 5.3 billion people in the world. We have an equally receptive audience in China, Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere where we can grow our coffee business."