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Want a little autumn in your August? You’re in luck.The seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte has returned to Starbucks menus in the U.S. and Canada.The Pumpkin Spice Latte is Starbucks’s most popular seasonal beverage, with hundreds of millions sold since the espresso drink’s 2003 launch. It’s also produced a host of imitations. Dunkin’ introduced pumpkin-flavored drinks in 2007; it beat Starbucks to market this year when its fall menu debuted last week. McDonald’s introduced a pumpkin spice latte in 2013.Here’s a look at the Pumpkin Spice Latte by the numbers: 100: Number of Starbucks stores that sold the Pumpkin Spice Latte during a test run in Vancouver and Washington in 2003. The following year it launched nationally. 79: Number of markets where Starbucks sold the Pumpkin Spice Latte in 2024. At the time, the company had stores in 85 markets around the world. It now operates in 88 markets. $36.2 billion: Starbucks’s net revenue in its 2024 fiscal year, which ended last September. Starbucks’s net revenue was $4.1 billion in 2003, when the Pumpkin Spice Latte first went on sale. 33.8%: Increase in mentions of pumpkin spice on U.S. menus between the fall of 2014 and the fall of 2024, according to Technomic. 4: Number of spices in McCormick’s Pumpkin Pie Spice. They are cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice. 2022: The year Merriam-Webster added “pumpkin spice” to the dictionary. Less common, it said, is the term “pumpkin pie spice.” 3: The Pumpkin Spice Latte was the third seasonal beverage introduced by Starbucks, after the Eggnog Latte and the Peppermint Mocha. September 8: Date the Pumpkin Spice Latte went on sale in 2015. The on-sale date has edged earlier since then. 24%: Amount foot traffic rose at U.S. Starbucks last year on August 22, the day the Pumpkin Spice Latte went on sale, according to Placer.ai. The company compared traffic that Thursday to the previous eight Thursdays. 45.5%: Amount foot traffic rose at Starbucks stores in North Dakota on August 22, 2024, the most of any state, according to Placer.ai. Foot traffic in Mississippi rose the least, at 4.8%. 42,000: Number of members of the Leaf Rakers Society, a private Facebook group Starbucks created in 2018 to celebrate fall all year long. Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer
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The U.S. Army is turning to sponcon to reach Gen Z. Steven Kelly, who has more than 1.3 million Instagram followers, ordinarily posts fitness and lifestyle content, peppered with an array of shirtless photos and sponsored posts for energy drinks and supplement brands. But a post back in July shows the influencer decked out in Army combat gear, swapping the gym floor for basic military training. The post was part of a sponsored partnership with Go Army. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Steven Kelly (@stevenkelly) A second post was captioned: “This experience showed me how the Army builds readiness, resilience, and discipline, preparing Soldiers to face challenges head-on and succeed in any environment.” The caption directed Kellys followers to a link in his bio to learn more about opportunities in the Army, signed off with the hashtag #Ad. Thanks for hanging with us, Steven! Go Army responded in the comments. The remainder of the comments section was mixed, with many accusing the influencer of selling out. War propaganda is so back, one person wrote. Army cosplay? another commented. It’s giving Hunger Games. Its giving Class Wars, added a third. Kelly isnt the only influencer enlisted by the Army to reach the digitally native generation. The Guardian recently reported that these posts are part of a new initiative to reach potential Gen Z recruits and increase the Armys visibility. The Army identifies social media influencers based on specific criteria for brand guidelines and validating audience alignment, Army spokesperson Madison Bonzo told Fast Company. The Army partners with influencers who are capable of creating authentic and relatable content that offers an unfiltered glimpse into military life, sharing compelling stories and tapping into emotional connections related to Army service. Influencer Breannah Yeh, best known for her slacklining content, switched things up by posting a video of herself skydiving with an Army-branded parachute. When you team up with a U.S. Army Jumpmaster, the lessons are limitless, her caption read. In partnership with @goarmy. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Y E H (@yehslacks) In June, the Army invited more than 30 influencers to its 250th anniversary parade, with behind-the-scenes access and opportunities to interview veterans and soldiers, in an effort to reach new audiences and attract the next generation to enlist. This strategic evolution aims to reach Generation Z by engaging them on their preferred digital channels and acknowledging their life and career priorities, Bonzo said. These partnerships increase the Army’s visibility, bring awareness to untapped audiences, and articulate the possibilities of Army service in unique and creative ways. This strategy shift came as the Army failed to hit its recruitment goals by almost 25% in 2022 and 2023. In 2024, it successfully met its goal of 55,000 new soldiers, but only by lowering the target by more than 10,000. Despite the mixed reaction, tapping in influencers may be working. This years recruitment goal is more than 10% higher, but in June the Army announced it had already hit its yearly targetfour months earlier than expected.
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E-Commerce
Nvidia’s business in China will be the focus of investors when the AI chipmaker reports earnings on Wednesday, following an unusual deal with the Trump administration and Beijing’s subsequent efforts to stall imports. Caught in the crossfire of Washington and Beijing’s ongoing trade war, the fate of Nvidia’s China business hangs on where the world’s two largest economies land on tariff talks and chip trade curbs. The artificial intelligence chip pioneer recently agreed to pay the U.S. federal government 15% of the sales it made it China in exchange for export licenses, a move that has drawn bipartisan criticism. Beijingdespite huge appetite for Nvidia’s chips in Chinahas urged domestic companies to limit purchases over apparent security concerns. Reports have emerged that Nvidia has told some suppliers to suspend production of its China-special H20 chips. But Reuters has reported that Nvidia is developing a new and more powerful chip for China. “We’ve got to get clarity on these two governments first, whether China wants the chips and whether the administration is going to allow it,” said Jamie Meyers, senior analyst at Nvidia shareholder Laffer Tengler Investments. “And if so, how is that going to work?” Last year, China accounted for 13% of Nvidia’s revenue. For the second quarter ended July 2025, many analysts did not factor in any revenue from H20 sales in that country given the U.S. approval came late in the quarter, while China’s pushback complicates forecast calculations for the year. In May, Nvidia had said the curbs would shave off $8 billion in sales from the July quarter. The curbs led to a $4.5 billion charge in the previous three-month period. Overall, the company is expected to report that second-quarter revenue jumped 53.2% to $46.02 billion, according to LSEG data, a far cry from the triple-digit growth it witnessed for many quarters. But analysts said the overall AI chip business is booming, with strong demand pouring in from tech giants such as Meta and Microsoft, who have expanded their capital budgets. Still, positive commentary on demand from CEO Jensen Huang could boost AI stocks that have sold off recently on worries that investors may be valuing them too highly. Nvidia shares have gained more than a third so far in 2025, a smaller gain for the period than the previous two years. This still outpaces a more than 15% gain in the broader chip index and the benchmark S&P 500 Index’s near 10% year-to-date rise. For the third quarter, analysts expect Nvidia to guide to revenue of $52.96 billion, up 51% year-on-year. About $6 billion of that could come from China, analysts from Piper Sandler had estimated with further growth at a 12% to 15% rate. But Nvidia could take a 5 to 15 percentage point hit to gross margins on China-bound chips due to the federal deal, with Bernstein analysts estimating it cutting about one point from Nvidia’s overall margins. The company’s adjusted gross margin is expected to drop nearly 4 percentage points to 72.1% in the second quarter. In the October quarter, gross margin is expected to contract by nearly two points to 73.2%. Arsheeya Bajwa, Reuters
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