KFC & Pizza Hut Report 18% Growth In October-December Quarter

In what seems to be a bounce-back of sorts for food services, Yum! Brands, which operates Pizza Hut and KFC restaurants in India, saw strong sales growth for the sixth straight quarter (October-December). This is actually the highest growth reported in 6 quarters for the two brands which is demonstrative of their turnaround being on track.

Back on Track After Demonetisation

Both KFC and Pizza Hut showed an 18% system sales growth according to the quarterly results declared by Yum! Brands on Thursday. System sales growth is jargon for top-line growth. However, Yum! Brands did not share same-store sales growth (SSG), which is sales growth for stores of one year and above, specifically for India.

Yum! did give an overall sense of same-store sales growth for the December quarter, saying international emerging markets (which includes India) saw same-store sales growth of 5 percent for KFC. For developed markets (excluding the US), same-store sales growth was 3 percent for KFC, the company said.

After demonetisation in 2016, it reported SSG of 9 percent for Pizza Hut and 16 percent for KFC. In the March 2017 quarter, sales growth fell to 6 percent for Pizza Hut and 2 percent for KFC, with the June quarter finally showing signs of recovery again.