• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, August 4, 2010

Just 10 months into its launch, global sales of Starbucks' Via Ready Brew instant coffee have reached $100 million, according to the company.

Not known for revealing specific product sales data, Starbucks in this case chose to trumpet the Aim milestone in a press release. 

The announcement emphasized that Via's U.S. sales alone already are well in excess of $50 million, qualifying the launch as a "mega-hit" as defined by SymphonyIRI Group (which awards the designation to U.S. products achieving that sales threshold within their first year).

Via ranks among the top 3% of all new U.S. products, and now has about 30% market share within the U.S. premium single serve/pod coffee segment, which totals $330 million when Nielsen-tracked pod sales and Via sales are combined, the company added.

At its launch last fall, there was considerable speculation among branding experts that Via, which is sold in mass retail outlets as well as in Starbucks locations, would either not gain traction with fussy coffee consumers or gain acceptance but undermine Starbucks' core brand and cannibalize sales of its traditional, on-premises coffee offerings. 

Instead, Starbucks' financials have continued to improve, with Via (among other innovations) playing a key role in its momentum and global expansion strategy.

Starbucks made a point of noting that its surveys of Via customers show that 55% are drinking the beverage at home, 25% at work and 20% while "on the go," and that nearly 40% indicate that they are drinking Via as an "additive to beverages they are currently drinking, rather than as a replacement [of] existing Starbucks coffee."

Starbucks president/CEO Howard Schultz noted that it had taken three years to achieve the $100 million mark for Frappuccino blended beverages (one of the company's most successful lines to date), and confirmed that Via will continue to be aggressively expanded both domestically and internationally.