Operations

Yum Brands bests Q2 earnings estimates with 23% SSS growth

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July 29, 2021

Like McDonald's yesterday, and Domino's a week back, multi-QSR parent company, Yum Brands, managed to beat analysts' estimates for it second quarter earnings, packing away same-store sales growth across its brands of 23% for the period that ended June 30, according to a news release. The results beat estimates of just over 20% for the period.

The company also announced earnings for the quarter of $1.16 per share, beating analysts estimates of 95 cents. This compares to earnings of 82 cents per share last year's quarter.

Other key second-quarter highlights for the company include:

Worldwide system sales excluding foreign currency translation grew 29% to $520 million, from $403 million last year's quarter.
KFC system sales grew 35%.
Taco Bell system sales grew 24%.
Pizza Hut system sales grew 10%.
The company reported 2% unit growth year-over-year and record second-quarter net new unit growth of 603.

Foreign currency translation favorably impacted divisional operating profit by $27 million.

"Our strong second-quarter results, led by record unit development and 23% same-store sales growth are a testament to our iconic brands, world-class talent, and best-in-class franchisees," Yum CEO David Gibbs said in the release. "I'm proud that each of our divisions reported positive same-store sales growth on a two-year basis, a step up from first-quarter trends.

"This sustained momentum was underpinned by our investments in digital and off-premise and the agility of our brands to meet the needs of consumers in an ever-changing environment. I'm thrilled to say that unit development has accelerated driven by strong unit-level economics. On the basis of these strong results, we're reinstating our long-term growth algorithm and revising the unit growth component of this algorithm from 4% unit growth to between 4% and 5% unit growth."

Yum! Brands, based in Louisville, Kentucky, has over 51,000 restaurants worldwide.