CHICAGO (AP) — Starbucks Corp.’s second-quarter profit rose more than eight-fold, thanks to its efforts to cut expenses and boost sales, the coffee company said Wednesday afternoon.

For the three months that ended March 28, the Seattle company earned $217.3 million, or 28 cents per share. That figure includes a one-time charge that amounted to a penny per share.

During the same period last year, Starbucks earned just $25 million, or 3 cents per share, when it was weighed down by hefty charges.

Revenue rose 9 percent to $2.53 billion, up from $2.33 billion.

Both figures were ahead of Wall Street forecasts.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, who typically exclude one-time charges from their estimates, expected Starbucks to earn 25 cents per share on revenue of $2.41 billion.

Starbucks said a key performance measure — sales in stores open at least a year — climbed 7 percent in the U.S. That figure, considered key because it isn’t skewed by results from stores that open or close during the year, slid 3 percent during the comparable quarter last year when Starbucks was in the throes of cutting costs and closing stores to shore up its business.

“Starbucks’ second-quarter results demonstrate the impact of innovation and the success of our efforts to dramatically transform our business over the last two years,” CEO Howard Schultz said in a statement. Schultz is also chairman and president of the chain.

It was the fourth consecutive quarter that Starbucks’ profit rose and the second that its revenue did.

Starbucks shares climbed 10 cents to $25.49 in after-hours trading Wednesday. Shares closed at $25.39 in regular activity.

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