We don’t have any lagging significant comp impacts from the previous year. And we do expect pricing trends to moderate as we go into the final quarter, as you said, but we do expect to end the year in line with the comp expectations of 7% to 9% growth that we had set. Now in terms of answering your question about the long term, the – what I have seen in both top line as well as in the earnings growth gives me real confidence in the fact that what we’ve guided to previously, the 10% to 12% revenue growth and the earnings growth of 15% to 20%, we have multiple paths to getting to that. So that just really signals the resilience of the business, the durability of the brand and the multiple paths we see, both in terms of top line as well as earnings growth, which I’m happy to elaborate on.
Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from Sharon Zackfia with William Blair. Please state your question.
Sharon Zackfia: Hi. Good afternoon. I was curious about the comments on the number of hours per partner. Can you give us kind of some color around where that is now and where you’d like that to be in the U.S.? How long you think it takes to get there? And kind of what the associated productivity improvements would be? I assume that’s throughput related but would love some color on that.
Laxman Narasimhan: So we’re feeling very good about the progress we are making in this area. Our foundational reinvention plan that we announced last year is essential to the improvements that we’re seeing now. We’re making very good progress on it. There are meaningful improvements in the store environment as well as the productivity gains that we’re making. Our equipment rollout is on track. Our peaks are growing faster than the rest of the dayparts. And we’re making strong progress on the scheduling and staffing basis. If you look on the retail team, barista turnover is down, as I said, 9% reduction versus previous year, a 2% reduction versus just the second quarter. And what you see is the combination of investments as well as the scheduling improvements that we’re making, the economic proposition, the take-home pay to our baristas has improved by 20% year-over-year and we have more improvements coming.
And you’re going to see us make improvements month-over-month in terms of improvements that we’re making. I mean, we’re going to ensure that we continue to increase these average hours through better staffing and scheduling but also work to accommodate their preferences, including the many that we attract to a keen on a part-time schedule. So this is progress that we’re making week over week, month over month, and there’s more to come next year.
Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from Andrew Charles, TD Cowen. Please state your question.
Andrew Charles: Great. Thanks. It’s a two-part question on China. Belinda, it’s hard to ignore the amount of discount activity in China by competitive coffee shops, that one competitor indicated earlier today will persist for a number of years. And so curious if you could talk about new strategies in place for Starbucks to help protect traffic without degrading the brand’s premium status. And then my other question is either for Rachel or Laxman, but you mentioned margin headroom a couple of times. Amid that volatile China macro, what are the offsets if the model China’s performance weakens? The 10-Q, I know, called out a sequential increase in North America productivity improvements from 2Q so maybe that’s perhaps an area where there’s more to grow or perhaps there’s another area that I’m not thinking about that allows for some cushion in the model if we were to see China macro become a little bit more uncertain.
Laxman Narasimhan: Got it. I’ll get Belinda to take the first question, Rachel to take the second, and then I’ll come in with some summary comments at the end. Belinda?
