Starbucks Continues Expansion of Mobile Order-and-Pay App

Starbucks says it will offer its mobile order-and-pay application to customers at stores in 21 more states in the southern and central U.S.

The expansion to these regions was planned since the debut of the order-ahead app in Portland for testing in December 2014. Earlier this year, the order-ahead app became available throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Even before adding the mobile order-and-pay app service for its customers, Starbucks was considered the poster child for mobile payments. The company enjoyed significant success with its mobile app, saying it accounted for 90% of mobile payment volume in 2013.

More recently, Starbucks said its mobile app is used for eight million transactions per week, or 19% of the company's U.S. sales, citing the order-ahead app as part of the growing equation.

Starbucks plans to eventually expand the order-ahead app to the Android platform and all U.S. company-operated stores this year.

Starbucks chose to develop its own order-ahead technology rather than use Square's version of this service. Starbucks, an investor in Square, has not relied on the mobile payment company for any technology, but it does use Square for payment processing. Starbucks also supports Apple Pay for in-app payments.