Starbucks Corp. (NYSE: SBUX) reported good first quarter earnings this afternoon, and shares have jumped 3.0% in after-hours trading.

Led by an increasing number of stores, and increased sales from the company's older stores, Starbucks saw its quarterly profit jump by 18% year over year. Earnings were in-line with analyst estimates at 19 cents, but revenue was slightly under what analysts had been hoping to see. For the quarter, revenue was $2.26 billion which was just a bit shy of the $2.3 billion estimates.

In addition the company stated it is still confident in its 2007 forecast, and that it will be buying back an additional 25 million shares of stock.

We will get a better idea of just how the company did this quarter as well as what it is expecting for the remainder of the year when we liveblog its earnings call tonight. The call is scheduled to start up at 5:00 PM EDT and we will cover it in its entirety here on BloggingStocks, so be sure to check back at 5 for live coverage of the action.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.