News

Burger King, Popeyes report Q1 growth, Tim Hortons lags behind

April 24, 2018

The parent company for Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Hortons, Restaurant Brands International, said its results for the first quarter of 2018 showed a mixed bag of results, nearly indicative of the state of the QSR sector itself. RBI CEO Daniel Schwartz said for the quarter ending March 31, Burger King continued to gain momentum, while Popeyes improved comparable U.S. sales and began growing internationally with a new development agreement in Brazil. However, the story was not as rosy for Tim Hortons, he said in a news release.

"At Tim Hortons ... results were soft," he said in the release. "We have high conviction that our 'Winning Together' plan ... will improve the guest experience and drive sales and profitability for our restaurant owners. ...

"We continue to see a lot of growth potential for each of our three brands, and through our focus on enhancing guest satisfaction and franchisee profitability, we believe that we will create value for all of our stakeholders for many years to come."

The company adopted a new accounting standard that it said caused total revenues to increase because advertising fund contributions are included now, while that was partly offset by a reduction in franchise fee revenues. Likewise, its said that selling, general, and administrative expenses also grew because ad funds expenditures were included.

For the three brands, here are the consolidated results for Q1 2018:

1. System-wide sales growth:

• TH fell from 3.3 percent to 2.1 percent for the quarter year over year. 
• BK grew from 6.2 to 11.3.
• PLK grew from 6.1 to 10.9.

     2.  System-wide sales:

• TH grew $1,514.0 to $1,607.7
• BK grew $4,477.0 to $5,148.9
• PLK grew $835.8 to $903.7

    3.  Comp. Sales:

• TH 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent.
• BK 0.1 percent to 3.8 percent.
• PLK 0.2 percent to 3.2 percent.

    4.  Net restaurant growth:

• TH dropped 4.6 to 2.8 percent for 4,774 at quarter's end.
• BK grew 5.1 to 6.9 percent for 16,859 at quarter's end.
• PLK grew 5.8 to 6.7 percent for 2,926 at quarter's end.