Starbucks Corp., the world's biggest coffee-shop chain, said profit fell the first time in almost five years on higher store-operating costs and more expensive coffee.

Fourth-quarter net income declined 5.2 percent to $117.3 million, or 15 cents a share, the Seattle-based company said today in a statement. An accounting change on store leases also lowered profit. Sales in the three months ended Oct. 1 rose 21 percent to $2 billion, missing analysts' estimates of $2.02 billion.

The company expanded warm breakfast sandwich offerings to increase sales at existing stores, which rose 5 percent for the quarter, the slowest since 2001. Chief Executive Officer Jim Donald in October raised coffee prices about 5 cents a cup in an effort to increase revenue and counter rising energy, labor and costs to open more than 650 stores in the quarter.

"They're opening a lot of new stores, and that means new real estate and more personnel in the field, and that's expensive," said Reed Bender, who help manage $250 million in assets including Starbucks shares at Robert Bender & Associates Inc. of Pasadena, Calif.

Donald plans to open 2,400 new stores next year, or about six a day, as it enters new markets including Brazil, India, Russia and Egypt.

Starbucks earned $123.7 million, or 16 cents a share, on sales of $1.66 billion, a year earlier.

Shares of Starbucks fell $2.13, or 5.4 percent, to $37.30 in trading after U.S. exchanges closed. Earlier, they rose 46 cents to $39.43. They had risen 31 percent this year. As of Oct. 1, the company had 12,440 stores, about 71 percent of which are in the U.S.