3 Answers From Jamba, Inc. (JMBA): Starbucks Corporation (SBUX), McDonald’s Corporation (MCD)

2. Will 2013 be the year of profitability?
All four major analysts with 2013 estimates were eyeing Jamba’s first annual profit coming in 2013. Well, the blender baron came in a year early.

The good thing about only losing $6.9 million during the holiday quarter is that it was less than the $7.2 million profit that Jamba rang up during the first nine months of the year.

Jamba’s $0.3 million net profit for all of 2013 may not be much — it rounds down to breakeven — but it’s a historic event as the first profitable year for Jamba since it went public eight years ago.

3. Can it stick to its original 2013 guidance?
Jamba’s sticking to its original outlook from November for the year ahead.

• Jamba’s still looking for 4% to 6% comps growth at its company-owned stores in 2013, so the holiday dip appears to be a fluke.
• Store-level margins should be 20%, and operating income margins should be 2.5% to 3%. If you’re curious, operating income margin for 2012 clocked in at 0.3%, so the improvement will be substantial.
• Jamba closed out the year with 774 domestic stores and 35 international locations. It plans to develop 60 to 80 largely franchised locations this year.
• Jamba is hoping to add 1,000 JambaGO stations. These are small, self-serve machines that go primarily in schools and commissaries. It’s a big number, but Jamba’s on it. JambaGO units went from 35 to 404 last year.

Consumer packaged goods are still a small part of this story, and Jamba, Inc. (NASDAQ:JMBA)s sticking to its goal of $4 million to $5 million in 2013 as it pushes out its canned energy drinks and other products.

The article 3 Answers From Jamba originally appeared on Fool.com.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Aristotle Munarriz owns shares of Jamba. The Motley Fool recommends McDonald’s and Starbucks. The Motley Fool owns shares of McDonald’s and Starbucks.

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