Yum China Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Yum China EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.30
• Consensus EPS: $0.31
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Yum China Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $2.63 billion
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Yum China Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/6/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 6, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 7:00AM ET

Yum China (NYSE:YUMC) Holdings, Inc. owns, operates, and franchises restaurants in the People's Republic of China. The company operates through KFC, Pizza Hut, and All Other segments. It operates restaurants under the KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Lavazza, Little Sheep, and Huang Ji Huang concepts. The company also operates V-Gold Mall, a mobile e-commerce platform to sell products; and offers online food deliver services. Yum China Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China.

Yum China Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Yum China reported a record-breaking 2024 with system sales up 5%, core operating profit up 12%, and diluted EPS up 22% year-over-year, and in Q4 system sales rose 4% with core OP up 35%.
• KFC delivered strong momentum with 6% system sales growth, 16% delivery sales growth, opened 1,352 net new stores, and expanded K Coffee Cafe from ~50 to 700 cafes, targeting 1,300 by end of 2025.
• Pizza Hut reached an inflection point by growing same-store transactions 5%, tripling Q4 core OP, opening a record 412 net new stores, and launching more mass-market pricing and 200+ Wow! model locations.
• Operational efficiency initiatives drove significant margin expansion, with Q4 restaurant margin up 160bps year-over-year and improvements in cost of sales, labor, and occupancy expenses.
• For 2025, Yum China expects mid-single-digit system sales growth, 1,618 net new stores, $700–800 million in capex, and aims to maintain or slightly improve core OP margin despite wage inflation headwinds.

Presentation

[Operator]

day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Yum China Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year twenty twenty four Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please note that today's conference is being recorded.

[Operator]

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Florence. Please go ahead.

[Florence Lip, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Yum China]

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining Yum China's Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Earnings Conference Call. On today's call are our CEO, Ms. Joey Wok and our acting CFO, Mr. Adrian Ding. I'd like to remind everyone that our earnings call and investment materials contain forward looking statements, which are subject to future events and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from these forward looking statements. All forward looking statements should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statement in our earnings release and the risk factors included in our filings with the SEC. This call also includes certain non GAAP financial measures.

[Florence Lip, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Yum China]

You should carefully consider the comparable GAAP measures. Reconciliation of non GAAP and GAAP measures is included in our earnings release, which is available to the public through our Investor Relations website located at ir.yangchina.com. You can also find the webcast of this call and our PowerPoint presentation on our IR website. Please note that during today's call, all year over year growth results exclude the impact of foreign currency unless otherwise noted. Now I would like to turn the call over to Joey Watt, CEO of Yum China. Joey?

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We just celebrated Chinese New Year last week. I want to wish everyone a happy and healthy year of the Snake. I'm excited to share that we achieved another quarter of strong results in quarter four, capping a record breaking year.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

In the fourth quarter, system sales grew 4% year over year, outperforming the industry. Same store sales index sequentially improved to 99% of prior year levels. Restaurant margin and OP margin expanded significantly year over year. Core operating profit grew 35%. For the full year, we set multiple new records.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

We opened a record seventeen fifty one net new stores, ending the year with 16,395 stores. Adjusted operating profit reached $1,200,000,000 Core OP increased 12% and dilute EPS grew 22. Our due focus on operational efficiency and innovation led to improvement in both the top and bottom lines. Despite a challenging environment and value minded consumers, our efforts have led to eight consecutive quarters of positive transaction growth. We have sequentially improved the same store sales index and expanded margins since quarter two.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

KFC has shown considerable resiliency and growth momentum. KFC accelerated store openings and reached 2,200 plus cities in China. Delivery sales grew 16%, continuing our decade long double digit annual growth momentum. 2024 feels to me like an inflection point for Pizza Hut. It has made significant progress in transforming itself by enhancing its mass market appeal and operational efficiency.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Core OP more than tripled in quarter four and grew 19% for the full year. Both brands have tapped into underserved markets and expanded into adjacent categories to drive incremental traffic, sales and profit. Our breakthrough models, K Coffee Cafe and Pizza Hut Wow showed promising results and have significant potential for further growth. I want to thank our incredible team for delivering these strong results. Embracing our people first culture, we celebrated our achievements with over 11,000 restaurant managers at our RGM convention in Hong Kong.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

We continue to delight our customers with great food and excellent value for money, and we are grateful to our shareholders for your continued support. With that, let me turn the call over to Adrian to discuss our results in detail. Afterward, I will share additional highlights on our CNY activities and our strategy. Adrian?

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Thank you, Joey, and happy Chinese New Year, everyone. In 2024, all of our brands made notable progress. Let me share some color by brand. I'll start with KFC, which consistently delivered strong performance. In 2024, KFC grew system sales by 6%, exceeding industry levels.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

We have developed innovative products for our flagship categories of original recipe chicken and juicy whole chicken, resulting in double digit sales growth. We have also expanded our delivery market share on aggregator platforms by capturing more smaller orders. At the same time, we improved rider efficiency and further enhanced customer experience. KFC opened a record thirteen fifty two net new stores in 2024, bringing our total store count to 11,648. Our flexible models enable us to broaden our reach with a mix of company owned and franchised stores.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

We added nearly 1,000 company owned net new stores in 2024. The payback period for our new stores remained healthy at two years. Thirty percent of KFC's net new stores were franchised stores. They helped us unlock incremental opportunities in lower tier cities, remote areas and strategic locations such as highways, campuses and tourist areas. KFC's growth potential in China is huge.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Coffee is a key growth driver for KFC. In 2024, KFC sold two fifty million cups of KFC, marking 30% growth. Our breakthrough K Coffee Cafe model expanded from around 50 cafes in 2023 to 700 cafes in 2024. We plan to expand the model to 1,300 locations by the end of twenty twenty five. KFC and K Coffee Cafe generate good synergies, driving incremental sales and profit.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

In terms of product innovation, aside from our signature fruity sparkling coffee, this winter, we launched the Handshaken Americano with Frozen Pear. The drink features a real frozen pear, a traditional Northern Chinese delicacy and has generated significant social buzz. Pizza Hut has made substantial progress in becoming more affordable for customers and profitable for our company. In 2024, Pizza Hut achieved the highest level of OP and RMB since our spin off. Same store transactions grew 5%.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Restaurant margin expanded by 60 basis points on a comparable basis. Pizza Hut also opened a record of four twelve net new stores, bringing the total to 3,724 stores. Pizza Hut's payback period for new stores improved from three years in 02/2003 to two to three years in 2024. We're transforming Pizza Hut into a more mass market brand by widening price range and enriching the menu. Sales of pizza priced under KRW50 increased 50% year over year.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Pizza dough burgers, a new category we launched in April, has already reached a low single digit percentage of our sales mix, showing good potential. As Pizza Hut expanded the addressable market, we also streamlined operations to improve efficiency. We managed to reduce our cost of labor by 110 basis points in 2024. Our breakthrough Wow! Model is gradually maturing, exceeding 200 stores in 2024.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Sign in sales saw solid growth, while delivery sales also improved. While stores attract younger customers and meet functional needs, expanding Pizza Hut's addressable market. Although the ticket average is lower by design due to smaller party sizes and lower per person spending, We successfully drove transaction growth. Margins have improved since launch. We'll continue to refine the Wow model and expand to more locations in 2025.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Levaza continued to grow with few growth engines of coffee shops and retail businesses. Store economics have meaningfully improved due to better operational efficiency and reduced new store capital expenditure. The retail segment saw sales growth of over 30% and became profitable in 2024. We've made good progress in building appreciation for Lavazza's coffee expertise and enriching food choices, such as Labaza's signature Cava beans, considered the first coffee on earth, and our Mission and Star Chef themed food offerings. For Little Sheep and Huang Zhi Huang, our focus has been on improving their menus, refining store models and strengthening their supply chain.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Little Sheep's new conveyor belt hotpot model is designed to appeal to solo diners and younger consumers. Wang Zihua has demonstrated resilience, delivering profits for five consecutive years ever since our acquisition. For Taco Bell, in 2024, we pruned our store portfolio to focus on our key markets, Beijing and Shanghai. These efforts led to improved operating results. Let me now go through our quarter four P and L.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

As a reminder, restaurant margin on a comparable basis excludes additional VAT deductions as well as temporary relief from landlords and government agencies received in the prior year. Core OP further excludes foreign exchange impact and special items. For quarter four, system sales grew 4% year over year and same store sales index sequentially improved to 99% of prior year levels. KFC system sales increased 5% year over year. Same store sales index improved sequentially reaching 99% of prior year levels with a 3% same store transaction growth year over year.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Our widened price range, reduced delivery fees and smaller ticket items like coffee and breakfast successfully attracted consumers. Quarter four ticket average was 38 yuan, 4 percent lower than prior year levels, yet stable with quarter three. Pizza Hut system sales increased 3% year over year. Same store sales index achieved 98% of prior year levels, improving by four percentage points sequentially. Same store transactions grew 9% year over year, the highest growth quarter in 2024.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

The ticket average was 10% lower year over year, which is in line with our strategy to transform Pizza Hut into a more mass market brand. More importantly, Pizza Hut's profitability continued to grow. Core OP in quarter four more than tripled year over year. Our restaurant margin was 12.3%, one hundred and sixty basis points higher year over year. On comparable basis, restaurant margin was 180 basis points higher year over year.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

We achieved savings across all cost lines. Cost of sales was 31.9%, fifty basis points lower year over year. Cost of sales improved through favorable commodity prices and our spending better and buying better initiatives under Project Red Eye. We continue to pass savings from these initiatives to our consumers offering excellent value for money. Cost of labor was 28.2%, eighty basis points lower year over year or 90 basis points lower on a comparable basis.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Improved operational efficiency more than offset wage increases for our frontline staff. Occupancy and other was 27.6%, thirty basis points lower year over year or 40 basis points lower on a comparable basis. This came from cost optimizations such as utility savings and simplified operations. Our OPE margin was 5.8%, one hundred and forty basis points higher year over year, driven by improved restaurant margin. Operating profit was US151 million dollars growing 35% year over year.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Core OP also increased 35% year over year. Net income was USD 115,000,000, growing 17% year over year. As a reminder, our mark to market equity investment had a negative impact of $9,000,000 in quarter four compared to a negative impact of $14,000,000 in the same period last year. We recognized $16,000,000 lower interest income this year from a lower cash balance. Diluted EPS was $0.3 growing 27% year over year or 20% excluding mark to market equity investment impact.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

For the full year, system sales grew 5% and same store sales index reached 97% of prior year levels. Restaurant margin was 15.7, steady year over year on a comparable basis. G and A expenses were 5% of revenue, in line with our target and 80 basis points lower compared to 5.8% in the prior year. This was due to operational efficiency gains and lower performance based compensation in the year, among other factors. Operating profit grew 8% to $1,200,000,000 Core operating profit increased 12%.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Effective tax rate was 26.7%, in line with our guidance and prior year. Net income was $911,000,000 up 13% year over year. Diluted EPS was $2.33 or 22% year over year or 12% excluding mark to market equity investment impact. Now let's turn to capital returns to shareholders. We're on track to return $4,500,000,000 to shareholders from 2024 through 2026 with a total of $3,000,000,000 allocated for 2025 and 2026.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

'6. The average annual amount is equivalent to around 9% of our market cap. In 2024, we returned $1,500,000,000 including US248 million dollars in quarterly cash dividends and $1,240,000,000 in share repurchases. Total repurchases exceeded 31,000,000 shares, representing 8% of our total shares outstanding. We generated $714,000,000 in free cash flow in 2024 and ended the year with $2,800,000,000 in net cash.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

With our healthy cash position and robust cash generating capabilities, we're stepping up our quarterly dividend significantly by 50% from $0.16 to $0.24 Assuming $0.24 per quarter, our payout ratio will be equivalent to over 40% of of our diluted EPS in 2024. Additionally, our $360,000,000 of share repurchase plan for the first half of twenty twenty five has been executed daily. We're committed to providing attractive capital returns to shareholders. Finally, moving on to our 2025 outlook. We continue to maintain our dual focus on system sales and same store sales growth.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

In terms of our footprint expansion, we're on track to reach 20,000 stores by 2026. In 2025, we expect to open between 1,618 net new stores. Capital expenditure in 2024 totaled US705 million dollars In 2025, we expect capital expenditure to be in the range of US700 million dollars to US800 million dollars Turning to margins. While commodity prices remain largely favorable, we continue to expect wage inflation in 2025. With our ongoing efforts in operational efficiency, we expect G and A expenses as a percentage of revenue to slightly decrease for the year.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

For 2025, we expect to hold core OP margin relatively stable or even slightly improve it year over year. By brand, we're committed to maintaining healthy restaurant margins for KFC and improving Pizza Hut in the mid to long run. As consumers celebrate the Chinese New Year, we're offering them delicious food, great value and an enjoyable experience. While trading so far has met our expectations, we need to closely monitor post holiday trading. The external environment remains dynamic.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Consumers are willing to spend more during holidays, but may become more cautious afterwards. We remain hopeful that stimulus policies may positively impact consumption in the mid to long run. For quarter one, we're confident that same store transaction index will continue to be positive for the ninth consecutive quarter, and our goal is to outperform the industry. Let me pass it back to Jo Yi for her comments on CNY and our strategy.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Thank you, Adrian. Building on Adrian's observations on Chinese New Year trading, I was delighted to see our stores bustling with customers. We offer them great food at an incredible value and exciting campaigns featuring Olympic champion and popular IPs. At KFC, we brought crayfish back for the eighth consecutive year. We even combined it with our iconic beef rep, to create a new customer favorite.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Our Chinese New Year tradition is the golden bucket. This year, for the first time, it included a whole chicken, making it a great choice for sharing with family and friends. At Pizza Hut, we introduced festive tray up options for our pizzas, such as pistachio stuffed crust and fortune cat crust, sau cai mau bingdi, a crust in the shape of fortune cat. In China, the pistachio symbolizes happiness and the fortune cat represents luck and prosperity. Customers love these good wishes for starting the new year.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

As I reflect on our industry leading results over the past few years, I come back to our due focus on operational efficiency and innovation. I think it's fair to say that most view these two as trade offs. To get one, you must compromise on the other. At Yum China, we reject that as a fourth trade off. We need both and both is the only outcome we will accept.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Operational efficiency has been a hallmark of Yum China from the beginning, but we have dialed up our efforts significantly in the last couple of years. Our Project Fresh Eye and Red Eye initiatives have given us new perspectives on our operations and transformed our organization. They have made us more efficient, agile and competitive from our restaurants and shared service centers to our supply chain. At the same time, we have doubled down on digitization, leveraging technology and generated AI to enhance customer experience and efficiency. The gains we have realized from these initiatives are not merely incremental.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

They represent structural improvements in our business capabilities that set us up for profitable growth far into the future. Innovation colors everything we do in every aspect of our business. We introduced around 600 new or upgrade menu items in 2024. Exciting new food and excellent value for money drive traffic to our stores. We innovated new store models such as KFC Small Town Mini and Pizza Hut valve to tap into underserved customer segments.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

We have found that operational efficiency and innovation fit all and reinforce one another. We have employed innovation to attack the problem of operational complexity. At KFC, our menu innovation focuses on infusing fresh energy into our flagship categories to unleash their huge potential. Our regional recipe chicken burger, gigantic egg tart, and crispy whole chicken, generated a lot of excitement. At the same time, we are simplifying operations to support these menu innovations.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

The same strategy applies to Pizza Hut. In December, we launched a brand new menu with delicious new products while streamlining operations. For example, the Golden Salty Egg Chicken Pizza, Liuzhindanhua Nengzi Pizza, crafted with our existing ingredients instantly became a popular choice. We also lowered prices on several of our iconic products while protecting margins. Our value for money communication is now more straightforward and compelling.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Customers love our new menu. And in quarter four, Pizza Hut achieved the best same store transaction growth in 2024. Before we turn to Q and A, I would like just to recap the three key takeaways from today. First, we achieved record breaking results in 2024 from top line to bottom line. KFC remains our key growth engine and profit contributor.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Pizza Hut has made significant progress, transforming in every aspect and feels to me as though it has reached an inflection point. Second, our due focus on operational efficiency and continuous innovation has made our business more resilient and competitive, positioning us for long term sustainable growth. Lastly, we remain committed to both sustainable growth and capital returns to shareholders. We are on track to return $4,500,000,000 to shareholders from 2024 through 2026. The average annual amount represents around 9% of our market cap.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

This quarter, we are stepping up dividends by 50. With that, I will pass it back to Florence.

[Florence Lip, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Yum China]

Thanks, Joey. Now we will open the call for questions. In order to give more people the chance to ask questions, please limit your questions to one at a time. Operator, please start the Q and A.

[Operator]

Thank Thank you.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with our first question. The questions come from the line of Michelle Chang from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.

[Michelle Cheng, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Hi, Joey, Adrian. Congrats again for the very solid results. And we understand the consumption environment still quite fluid. So I would like to take a chance to hear your observation on the competitive landscape. So we indeed hear some companies who are slowing down expansion and even they are starting to withdraw some of the promotion activities.

[Michelle Cheng, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

And we noticed that KFC actually start to raise the price early of the year. So are we seeing the competitive landscape improving? And also we see more opportunities to further accelerate, penetrate, expand in our market share. So it will be great to hear your insight. Thank you.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Thank you, Michelle. We do see some rationalization of marketing promotion and also a little bit of price increase, including ourselves. So I think that is healthy because very modest price increase and the rationalization of the promotion, they do help to manage the cost pressure. So that is sort of the overall what we are observing. However, most importantly, I think for us, we know what's our focus and maybe I'll take this time to just really highlight the few things that Adrian and I would both make in our opening remarks earlier.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Obviously, our hardware in Pizza Hut for a change, let me start with Pizza Hut. We We have done something right because we actually used the word inflection point for this quarter because we really have seen every aspect of the business has been transformed in a very positive way. The results speak for itself, very nice improvement of the same store sales, 4%. And then the OP improvement is solid. And then the net new store opening is four twelve this year, twenty twenty four.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

It's the best net new store in the last ten years really. And still, the breakeven is two to three years. And the breakthrough of the two business of the business model, one is just to become even more mass market, which is having our goal in the last many years with the introduction of additional product and lowering the price. And then the second breakthrough is the valve. So very nice result with very clear growth drivers.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

So we are at the inflection point for Pizza Hut. For KFC, it's a very big business already, but yet we still see quarter four and ongoing strong momentum and performance in three way. One is we continue to widen the offering in terms of price point, increasing the entry price point, but also higher ticket average such as whole chicken. And then also the secondly is the K Coffee improvement. It's 30% growth for K Coffee alone.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

And that's very, very nice. And then the delivery too, delivery is not only one quarter, it's ten years of double digit increase. And net net for both business, just to do another health check, the same store transaction growth is nice and healthy on the eighth quarter of such. So with all these happening, we are capturing incremental business and hopefully a little bit of market share. But with that said, Michel, it's still a very big market.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

And our market share, relatively speaking, is still very small, even though we are the biggest player in the market. And there's still a lot of the opportunity for us to expand the business, have more market share by going to lower Tier three and going for the incremental franchisee store etcetera, etcetera. But I'll pause here. Thank you, Michelle.

[Michelle Cheng, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Thank you, Joey for the explanation and congrats again.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question has come from the line of Chen Lau from Bank of America. Please ask the question.

[Chen Luo, Analyst at Bank of America]

Hi, Julian, Adrian. Congrats again on the results. So my question is focused on the new store expansion. Because I noticed that, A, we have opened more and more smaller stores and B, we are also expanding to more and more to the lower tier cities. And number three, we are now shifting from an equity store focused model to a hybrid model with more and more franchise stores to be opened in next few years. What's the implication from these changes? For example, if you look at the second half numbers of last year, so our net store opening growth was around low teens. But then if you look at the revenue contribution from new stores, it should be around 5% for Q4 and about 6% for second half.

[Chen Luo, Analyst at Bank of America]

And meanwhile, our franchise stores as a percentage of total net new stores increased to about 33% versus only teens in first half. So with all these things in mind, is it fair to say that the near term algo in terms of the revenue contribution from new store openings in the coming few quarters could be just around 5% or 6%, similar to second half of last year due to the in case some smaller stores and more and more expansion into the lower tier cities as well as the franchise stores. Hope my answer is my question is clear enough. Thank you.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Thank you, Lawson. I'll address your question of the new store and franchisee store and then Asian public can help elaborate a bit in terms of relationship of the store number versus the revenue contribution. So I mean, Lawson, we are pursuing due focus on both returning a lot of capital to the shareholder and at the same time pursuing high growth. So we have addressed the capital allocation already in our opening remarks. So on the new store opening area, you can see that we just continue to be very aggressive with that because as I answered my question to Michelle earlier, there's still a lot of opportunity for us to open store, both in a top tier city and lower tier city.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

And the strategy needs to be slightly different, but we see that opportunity. And then the lower tier city right now is a big focus because even we observe the trading in the last year or even last quarter, lower tier cities still doing better. So we'll continue to do that. But it does require different model, for example, lower investment, smaller menu, simpler operation. But net net, the criteria is we still want to two years payback for the stores across all city tier and for KFC and two to three years for Pizza Hut.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

As far as we can achieve that, we'll continue our journey to open more store in top tier city and lower tier city. When it comes to the relationship between company owned store and franchisee store, our despite our accelerated franchisee store opening in the last year and particularly last quarter, the company owned store still contribute to vast majority actually specifically 85% of our entire portfolio. So it's going to take a while for the franchise store to catch up even though we are catching up. So for the company owned store, it does have very nice store economics. However, why we are accelerating the franchising store because they are incremental.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

They're incremental in two area. One is strategic location such as highway service center, college campus, hospitals, etcetera, etcetera. And secondly, they are in the lower tier city and remote area as well. So both are incremental. And operationally, we can do it.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Our team can do it. Operationally, we have the appropriate store model such as KFC Small Town Mini for KFC. And then right now, the Pizza Hut valve is very promising for the lowest Tier City as well. So therefore, we are doing more. So it's a natural development of our company's capabilities.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

And then I'll pause here. I'll let Adrian answer the relationship between the revenue and the store.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Thank you. Thank you, Joey. So Lotren, you are exactly right that the size of the stores become smaller and smaller. And it's worth noting that even for the larger stores, in the first year of their opening, the revenue tend to be smaller. Overall, our new store that opened this year enjoyed 50% to 60% of revenue compared to the mature stores.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

So that's the first point. The second point is the store week also play a role here. So if keeping all else equal, then yet net new store growth rate the same, the time at which we open the stores within a quarter will play a role in the system sales growth. So that I think at least two points combined will address your question on the mathematical relationship there. And lastly, I think you asked the question over the next few quarters, what is our system sales growth guidance?

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

I think if overall macro situation is stable as it is right now, we would, as you pointed out, enjoy a mid single digit growth of system sales this year in 2025. Obviously, new store only play a portion of the role here. It's important to know that SSG is also important in deciding what is the ultimate system sales growth. So these two combined will contribute to the final figure of system sales growth. But at this point in time, we do expect a missing low digit growth for this year 2025. Thank you, Luo Chen.

[Chen Luo, Analyst at Bank of America]

Thank you. That's very clear. Congrats again and also happy twenty year.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question comes from the line of An Lin from Jefferies. Please ask your question.

[Anne Ling, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Hello. Thank you very much for taking my question. Just one question regarding the TA. So I understand that the same store sales growth, the decline actually narrowed. Then like if we take a look at the breakdown, TA is still negative, but however, we have a very strong TC to offset this.

[Anne Ling, Managing Director at Jefferies]

So my question is like when do you think that this TA will start to turn positive or yes, so I think that's the key question that I have especially for KFC. Thanks.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Thank you. Thank you, Anne. So our TA trend is basically consistent with our intended strategy to drive traffic. And as you point out, we continue to drive same store transaction growth. It's the eighth consecutive quarter, and that allow us to grow our business in underserved market segment, which is working.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

And at the same time, it's important to note that while we are doing that, we are able, at the same time, protect the margin as it show in the quarter four margin. Restaurant margin and OP margin both actually improved because our TA strategy is also aligned with our due focus on operational efficiency and innovation. And then answering your question about our plan going forward, well, in the long term longer term, we took a balanced approach to maintain a steady TA. For example, our quarter four TA, which is KFC would be RMB38 is still higher than the TA pre pandemic. In the short term, our goal of the TA is to remain relatively stable.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Our quarter four TA, 38 yen, again, is stable versus quarter three. And our focus is on value and then also widening the price range and also to drive the traffic. And it's working. And we don't have any material plan to change our approach even after the modest price increase back to December 2024. And for Pizza Hut, our strategy is to continue to drive the TA down to make it more mass market while improving the sales and the profit. Thank you, Anne.

[Anne Ling, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question has come from the line of Lillian Liu from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.

[Lillian Lou, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Thanks a lot. Hi, Joey and Adrian. Congrats again. My question is more on margin. Obviously, I think the fourth quarter is another evidence of a very strong execution efficiency and all around the operation management.

[Lillian Lou, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

And in particular, I think the payroll and the labor cost savings was quite significant. So trying to understand going forward in 2025 with all the cost projects initiatives continuing, what are line items in particular are we seeing more chance for savings further? And what kind of overall margin improvement trend we can expect for 2025? Thanks.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Thank you, Lillian. So let me try to address this question. Firstly, sales is an important factor to determine the margin for 2025. And I'll actually first state the conclusion first on the overall margin trend and then break it down for the different drivers. As to the conclusion, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we look to keep the core key margin for the full year relatively stable or even slightly improve it year over year.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

And by brand, we're committed to maintaining a healthy restaurant margin for KFC and improving Pizza Hut's restaurant margin in the mid to long run. And then now I'll break it down into different drivers. Firstly, I'll discuss about COS. So we continue to invest in value for money to drive incremental traffic. And commodity price remain favorable as I mentioned in the prepared remarks in the near term.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

And we continue to see improvement through Project Red Eye initiatives, redesigning our product approach to optimize ingredient use. Because of our long term guidance, we still aim to keep our QoS at 31% plus and minus 1%, but for the year of 2025, this ratio is likely to fall in the upper half of our guidance range, with some slight improvement year over year from 2024. So COS as a percent of sales will slightly improve year over year, but it will fall in the upper half of our guidance range. So that's our COS. In terms of COL, we will face some headwinds.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

So we are facing ongoing cost pressure from wage inflation, which over the years tend to be low single digit or two mid single digit. And they will increase in our rider cost is also a challenge because the delivery mix will increase. But to clarify, the rider cost per ticket will go down as we previously discussed about, but the increase in delivery mix will make the rider cost as a percentage of our sales increase. We'll continue to make every effort to drive operational efficiency to partially offset those cost pressure on CLL, but overall, we do expect to face some headwind on CLL as a percentage of sales. And then thirdly, coming to O and O.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

We do see much improvement from O and O from the past few years if you compare it to 2024 from 2019 before the COVID times. There was a significant improvement in rental. Back then, the rental was around 10% of sales. Now, as you know, it's below 9%, although we don't disclose the exact figure. Depreciation also meaningfully improved as a result of capital expenditure improvement.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

And also, we seek a higher return on investment on advertising expenses. So advertising A and P expense have been improving over the past five years. And then speaking of 2025, we will continue to look for opportunities to generate some savings in O and O, but the O and O cost as a percent of revenue is likely to be stable year over year from 2024 to 2025. The opportunities that I mentioned include the AMP opportunities, particularly for Pizza Hut because the AMP as per percent of sales for Pizza Hut is still slightly higher than KFC. So we do see some opportunities there.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

But for other some other line items within O and O, we also feel some pressure. So overall, while occupancy other costs, it's likely to be stable. And lastly, coming to G and A. As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we target the two year P and A stand up presenter sales to slightly decrease, but we do expect some quarterly fluctuations. So that helps give you some more color on our margin. And in a nutshell, the conclusion is the quality margin will remain relatively stable or slightly improve year over year.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Ask one short comment regarding the cost of labor. In terms of approach, specifically what exactly have we been doing, mainly focusing on few things, simplification, automation, centralization, digitization. So all these activities in the stores are going through these few approach to improve the efficiency of CLL. So exactly what are we doing? Well, for example, Generate AI, we've been using Generate AI to screen millions of resume and then also forecasting etcetera.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

And that certainly helps save the labor costs. And we're also outsourcing some activities in the stores to the central kitchen. And not only save the COL, but also change the profile of the staff's number in the store, which we're going to share more in any report later on. So specifically, that's what we have been doing and it's been ongoing and particularly focused since project Fresh Eye last year as well. But it will be ongoing. Thank you, Lin Lin.

[Lillian Lou, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Thanks a lot, Zhou

[Lillian Lou, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Yi and Adrian. That's very detailed and very helpful. Thank you again.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question has come from the line of Christine Peng from UBS. Please ask your question.

[Christine Peng, Head of Greater China Consumer Sector at UBS Group]

Thank you, management for the opportunity to raise the question. So I have a very quick question regarding Pizza Hut Wow. I think Adrian probably mentioned earlier that Pizza Hut Wow, the capital return is actually pretty good compared with the traditional Pizza Hut store, but I just want to get more clarity in terms of the store economics such as unit revenue margin, such as so that we can better understand the potential of this new format going forward. Thank you.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Okay.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Yes. So thank you, Christine. Indeed, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, please hold well. We do observe some pretty encouraging progress. But I need to caution that it's a new model that's only like a seven month old.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

It takes time for any new model to become mature. And the right word we are using we were using the prepared remark was the model is maturing, is in the process of maturing. So we do observe some early signs of significant outperformance on the dying part of the sales. And then on delivery part of sales, it's improving since the first Pizza Hut Wow! Model opened in May.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

But still there is a slight gap versus the regular Pizza Hut model in terms of delivery sales. And in terms of margin, as it's always our philosophy, the transaction comes first and then sales and then margin. So margin, we're still in the process of fixing the margin. Currently, in terms of the 200 Wow stores, the COS and COL for many of those stores become broadly on par versus the regular Pizza Hut model as a percentage of sales. But the overall margin, there is still a slight gap versus the main model.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

So we are still in the process of fixing those. So for the year, for 2025, the focus here on BAW model is really to firstly further improve the delivery sales and secondly to fix the margins. Obviously, over the past seven months, over the 200 Wow stores, a vast majority or almost all of those stores are flipping from the regular Pizza Hut models. We only opened the first new Pizza Hut Wow store in December. This year, we'll test opening new Pizza Hut Wow stores, especially we do see some good potential in lower tier cities and in highly competitive trade zones where consumer do seek value for money.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

So it's a new model again and then it takes time for the model to mature, but we do have high hopes and excitement on this model. Thank you, Christine.

[Christine Peng, Head of Greater China Consumer Sector at UBS Group]

Thank you, Adrian.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question comes from the line of Ethan Wang from CLSA. Please ask your question.

[Ethan Wang, Equity Research Analyst at CLSA Limited]

Thank you. Good evening, Joey, Adrian. Happy to be flexible. Just a follow-up question, Adrian's previous comment on the headwind on labor costs. So Adrian mentioned the labor cost per ticket for delivery has been down, but because delivery as presented for the sales going up, so that may lead to some headwind.

[Ethan Wang, Equity Research Analyst at CLSA Limited]

Just want to understand more on that point because actual Brazilian sales, a percentage of total revenue has been going up last year, but we are able to achieve lower labor costs per store. That's quite impressive. So why that is not the case going into 2025? Just want to understand it. Thank you.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Thank you, Ethan. So just to offer some more color here. You are right in pointing out that the 2024, we successfully managed to improve the operational efficiency significantly to offset the impact of delivery sales mix increase on the CLL. So as a natural consequence, that will be a high base for us. That will be a tough Latin for us.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

As you know, the Project Fresh Eye actually kicked off in late twenty twenty three. So the full year, there is an impact on 2024. And the CUL is one of the key areas of Project Fresh Eye in terms of efficiency enhancement and productivity improvement. So with this tough lapping and tough base, for 2025, I just give some pretty transparent guidance on how the CUL as present sales may evolve. First, I'll break down into two parts, just offer some more color.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

The first part is the non rider part, right? The non rider part, obviously, we do face a low to mid single digit wage inflation, but we will make every effort to try to further enhance our operational efficiency to hopefully offset that wage inflation. So we do look the downrider part of COL to be broadly stable as a percentage of sales for the full year 2025. And then the second part is obviously the delivery part. In terms of the delivery cost per ticket, it will be lower year over year from 2024 to 2025.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

There are lots of efficiency measures there. Notably, the platform riders, which is one of the key initiatives, improves the cost and at the same time, the quality of the service still improving. As we mentioned in one of our previous earnings release, KFC currently already enjoyed around half of the stores with the platform riders doing the delivery and Pizza Hut is having a lower percentage. And obviously, there is a room to improve on both this penetration for platform riders in our stores. So that's some of the drivers to drive down the per ticket cost on delivery.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

But the increase in delivery mix as a percent of sales is probably more than the savings we can generate from there. So all in all, the delivery part of the COL as a percent of sales may likely slightly increase year over year. So overall, if you add these two together, one is probably stable, the other one is slightly increased. We do face some headwind there on COL. But as I mentioned, we do have some other margin initiatives, for instance, COL.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Hopefully, it will be slightly better year over year for both the brands and for Yum China and O and O will be broadly stable. All in all, as a result, the restaurant margin for KFC, we hope to maintain the healthy level restaurant margin year over year. For Pizza Hut, we look to improve it over the mid to long run and hopefully slightly improve it for this year as well. And for Yum China as a whole for 2025, the core OP margin, we expect that to be stable or slightly increasing year over year. Ethan, thank you.

[Ethan Wang, Equity Research Analyst at CLSA Limited]

Got it. Thank you, Adrian. And congratulations ending the year on a strong outlook, especially with margin. Thank you.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with the last question. And the question comes from Llanar Sijilin from CICC. Please ask your question.

[Sijie Lin, Analyst at China International Capital Corporation (CICC)]

Thank you for the chance for the last question. Thank you, Julien and Adrian. Happy Chinese New Year. And I have one question. So our pricing strategy is very clear both for KFC and Pizza Hut.

[Sijie Lin, Analyst at China International Capital Corporation (CICC)]

So just want to further evaluate our actions. So for Pizza Hut, it has been going through promotional activities from December to February. So how does this affect same store sales and margin? And also we see that the TA for Pizza Hut has already reached 78 in Q4. So do we think this level has already reached our expectation or still have some room to trade down in the future? Thank you.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Thank you, Sohji. For Pizza Hut, our goal actually will continue to drive down the GA for the Pizza Hut model. It's very impressive the brand team has done to move it to 78%. But we see room to go down slightly further, but above KFC obviously and also above Pizza Hut Bao. Then I think we'll be happy.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

In terms of the pizza pricing and promotion, let's take the new menu that we just launched. We launched 40 new products in the December 2024 new menu. And then we lowered the list price of about 30 iconic products for the Pizza Hut model starting from JPY 9.9 for the drinks and desserts. So it's very attractive. And then in the price reduction, some item, very iconic for example, the Wornio, escargot, we have the price.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

However, here's the little very important point. We kept the margin neutral through the innovation. So we are very happy that we found ways to deliver our iconic product, which with much value for money for the customer and also put that in margin. And the communication become very straightforward as well. No need to go through the very sophisticated promotional pricing.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

We just go straight to the very attractive menu price and we still prepare the margin. So that's what we have been doing and customer resonate very well with that. And thus, we have observed a very nice transaction growth. So we'll continue to do that. So I'm glad that we our team took a very bold move with that 30 iconic product price reduction and still projected margin.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

So we'll continue to find new ways to serve our customer even better going forward. Thank you.

[Sijie Lin, Analyst at China International Capital Corporation (CICC)]

Thank you, Joey, and congrats again.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Florence Lip, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Yum China]

This is Yan. Thanks, Joey. Thanks, Adrian.

[Florence Lip, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Yum China]

Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. For further questions, please reach out through the contact information in our earnings release and on our website.

[Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer at Yum China]

Thank you.

[Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Yum China]

Thank you all. Thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• Florence Lip, Senior Director of Investor Relations
• Joey Wat, Chief Executive Officer
• Adrian Ding, Acting Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

• Michelle Cheng, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Chen Luo, Analyst at Bank of America
• Anne Ling, Managing Director at Jefferies
• Lillian Lou, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Christine Peng, Head of Greater China Consumer Sector at UBS Group
• Ethan Wang, Equity Research Analyst at CLSA Limited
• Sijie Lin, Analyst at China International Capital Corporation (CICC)