Howard Schulz, Starbucks CEO, said tech firms and other national retailers had approached the coffee chain about either white-labelling or licensing its mobile payments platform.

Speaking at the company’s earnings conference call for its fiscal second quarter, Schulz boasted that the “overtones” made were a reflection on how successful its mobile  operation had been.

“I think you have to ask yourself, why are they asking us to do this?” he asked. “We have such a significant lead. There isn’t a company that we can identify that is processing anything close to a million transactions a week, and we’re now way over five million.”

Schulz did not hold back. “Most of the national retailers did not invest ahead of the growth curve,” he added. “They do not have the capability in-house at this point to really execute this and to fully understand it.”

And while tech companies have engineering expertise, Shulz argued they “do not have the interface on the physical side with the consumer to execute it”.

“We are taking a very thoughtful and disciplined approach as we consider these overtones in what we believe will ultimately prove to be a very significant additional driver of long-term shareholder value,” he said. “You’ll be hearing much more about our plans around mobile, digital and royalty in the months and quarters ahead.”

Starbucks reports that over 10 million customers are actively using its mobile app, twice the number from only a year ago.

Moreover, mobile payments now account for over 14 per cent of tender in Starbuck’s company-operated stores in the US and Canada, rising 75 per cent from just a year ago.