UK company Whitbread aims to reach 3500 Costa Coffee shops worldwide in five years.

Expansion is particularly focused on China where it currently has 246 stores. The parent company plans to increase the store count to 500 by 2016.

In India, Costa Coffee plans to open another 200 shops by 2015, saying it is seeing great potential for the business in the country.

Whitbread says it aims to double the sales of Costa Coffee from £1 billion last year to £2 billion by 2018.

In its home country, Costa Coffee also plans to expand further with plans to hire 12,000 new staff in the next five years.