Starbucks, the world's largest speciality coffee chain, wants massively to increase the number of coffee shops it operates in Germany in an attempt to step up the pace of expansion in the country's growing market.

"We want to open 26 new coffee shops this year. Next year, the number will be even higher. We see the potential of several hundred coffee shops in Germany," Cornelius Everke, the head of Starbucks' German operations, told FT Deutschland, the Financial Times's sister newspaper.