2024-11-05 Yum! Brands, Inc. (YUM) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call November 5, 2024 7:45 AM ET

Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) 2024 年第三季度收益电话会议 2024 年 11 月 5 日上午 7:45 ET

Company Participants 公司参与者

Matt Morris - Head, Investor Relations

马特·莫里斯 - 投资者关系负责人

David Gibbs - CEO

Chris Turner - CFO

Conference Call Participants

电话会议参与者

Gregory Francfort - Guggenheim Securities

Brian Bittner - Oppenheimer

Jon Tower - Citi

Dennis Geiger - UBS

David Palmer - Evercore ISI

John Ivankoe - JPMorgan

David Tarantino - Baird

Operator 操作员

Welcome, everyone, to the Yum! Brands 2024 Third Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Lauren, and I will be coordinating your call today. There will be an opportunity for questions at the end of the presentation. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand you over to Matt Morris, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

欢迎大家参加百胜餐饮集团 2024 年第三季度财报电话会议。我叫劳伦，今天将由我来协调您的电话会议。在演示结束时会有提问的机会。[操作员说明] 现在我将把电话交给投资者关系负责人马特·莫里斯。请继续。

Matt Morris

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. On our call today are David Gibbs, our CEO; Chris Turner, our CFO; and Dave Russell, our Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller. Following remarks from David and Chris, we'll open the call to questions.

谢谢，接线员。大家早上好，感谢大家加入我们。今天的电话会议上有我们的首席执行官大卫·吉布斯；首席财务官克里斯·特纳；以及高级副总裁兼公司控制员戴夫·拉塞尔。在大卫和克里斯发言后，我们将开放提问环节。

Before we get started, please note that this call includes forward-looking statements that are subject to future events and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. All forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this call and should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements in our earnings release and the risk factors included in our filings with the SEC.

在我们开始之前，请注意，此电话包含前瞻性声明，这些声明受未来事件和不确定性的影响，可能导致我们的实际结果与这些声明有重大差异。所有前瞻性声明仅在本次电话日期作出，并应结合我们收益发布中的警示性声明以及我们向 SEC 提交的文件中包含的风险因素进行考虑。

In addition, please refer to our earnings release in the relevant sections of our filings with the SEC to find disclosures, definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures and other metrics used on today's call. Please note that during today's call, losses and sales growth and operating profit growth results exclude the impact of foreign currency.

此外，请参阅我们在提交给 SEC 的文件中相关部分的收益发布，以查找非 GAAP 财务指标和其他在今天电话会议中使用的指标的披露、定义和对账。请注意，在今天的电话会议中，损失和销售增长以及营业利润增长的结果不包括外汇的影响。

As a reminder, several of Yum! Brands business units report on a period calendar basis, including all U.S. and Canada brands, KFC U.K. and KFC Australia. When forecasting 2024, please keep in mind this year will include an extra week in the fourth quarter for those entities. For more information on our reporting calendar for each market, please visit the Financial Reports section of the IR website. We are broadcasting this conference call via our website. This call is also being recorded and will be available for playback.

提醒一下，百胜餐饮集团的几个业务部门是按期间日历报告的，包括所有美国和加拿大品牌、KFC 英国和 KFC 澳大利亚。在预测 2024 年时，请记住这些实体在第四季度将包括额外的一周。有关我们每个市场报告日历的更多信息，请访问投资者关系网站的财务报告部分。我们正在通过我们的网站直播此次电话会议。此次电话会议也正在录音，并将可供回放。

We would like to make you aware of upcoming investor events. Our in-person Taco Bell Consumer Day will be held Tuesday, January 28, in Downtown Los Angeles. Taco Bell Consumer Day will take place in the morning and will be preceded by Taco Bell's iconic Live Moss Live event. Due to limited capacity, attendance for both events will be by invitation only. However, direct requests can be made by contacting IR at yuminvestormailbox@yum.com. Our fourth quarter earnings will be released on February 5 with a conference call on the same day.

我们想让您了解即将到来的投资者活动。我们的 Taco Bell 消费者日将于 1 月 28 日星期二在洛杉矶市中心举行。Taco Bell 消费者日将在上午举行，之前将有 Taco Bell 标志性的 Live Moss Live 活动。由于容量有限，两个活动的参与均仅限受邀者。然而，可以通过联系 yuminvestormailbox@yum.com 的 IR 直接提出请求。我们的第四季度收益将于 2 月 5 日发布，并在同一天举行电话会议。

Now I'd like to turn the call over to David Gibbs.

现在我想把电话交给大卫·吉布斯。

David Gibbs

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. Despite the complex consumer environment around the globe, our team managed to grow profits 3% year-over-year with the quarter bringing to light the real strengths of our twin growth engines, Taco Bell U.S., which meaningfully outperformed the industry on comp sales and KFC International, which meaningfully outperformed on unit growth.

谢谢你，马特，大家早上好。尽管全球消费者环境复杂，我们的团队仍设法实现了利润同比增长 3%，这一季度突显了我们双增长引擎的真正优势，即 Taco Bell 美国在可比销售方面显著超越行业，以及 KFC 国际在单位增长方面显著超越。

Although the U.S. QSR industry experienced negative traffic trends in Q3, Taco Bell U.S. posted an impressive 4% increase in same-store sales and led the industry in Q3 on value perception among all QSR users. Taco Bell delivered another quarter of significant market share gains driven by the execution of the brand's magic formula involving brand buzz, value, category entry points and digital engagement. Taco Bell's competitive advantages in innovation, value leadership at compelling price points and strong consumer connection are clear reasons why the brand remains a category of one when it comes to winning with consumers in any economic environment.

尽管美国 QSR 行业在第三季度经历了负面客流趋势，Taco Bell 美国的同店销售额却增长了令人印象深刻的 4%，并在所有 QSR 用户中以价值感知领先行业。Taco Bell 通过执行品牌的魔法公式，包括品牌热度、价值、品类切入点和数字参与，带来了又一个季度的显著市场份额增长。Taco Bell 在创新、以引人注目的价格点领导价值以及与消费者的强大联系方面的竞争优势，是该品牌在任何经济环境中赢得消费者的明确原因。

Our other twin growth engine, KFC International, delivered 9% year-over-year unit growth, an incredible result that led all major competitors and that reflects the underlying power of the brand and the confidence of our franchise partners in the future of our business. KFC International's development was diverse, spanning 64 countries. Furthermore, gross unit openings year-to-date are up nearly 150 units over last year.

我们的另一个双增长引擎，肯德基国际，实现了 9%的年度单位增长，这是一个令人难以置信的结果，领先于所有主要竞争对手，反映了品牌的潜在力量以及我们的特许经营合作伙伴对我们业务未来的信心。肯德基国际的发展多样化，遍及 64 个国家。此外，截至目前的总单位开业数比去年增加了近 150 个单位。

Building on this momentum, KFC is enhancing its core capabilities to ensure growth over the long term by establishing 7 centers of excellence focused on restaurant design, customer insights, market planning, food innovation and more. These centers will drive operational and marketing excellence while leveraging the brand's scale, strengthening a competitive moat that has helped KFC grow successfully around the globe in 150 countries, an achievement that few global brands have ever accomplished.

在这一势头的基础上，KFC 正在增强其核心能力，通过建立 7 个卓越中心来确保长期增长，这些中心专注于餐厅设计、客户洞察、市场规划、食品创新等。这些中心将推动运营和营销卓越，同时利用品牌规模，强化竞争壁垒，这一壁垒帮助 KFC 在全球 150 个国家成功发展，这一成就是少数全球品牌曾经实现的。

It is no secret that the global macroeconomic environment remains complex. In many parts of the world, our brands are delivering outstanding growth and outperforming the competition.

全球宏观经济环境依然复杂，这已不是什么秘密。在世界许多地区，我们的品牌正在实现卓越增长，并超越竞争对手。

We continue to see strong sales growth in KFC regions such as Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and parts of both Europe and Asia. In South Africa, where our KFC sales are up strongly, our teams have improved our value proposition, limiting recent price increases to 1% in comparison to nearly high single digits in affected local competitors.

我们继续在非洲、拉丁美洲和加勒比地区以及欧洲和亚洲的部分地区看到肯德基的强劲销售增长。在南非，我们的肯德基销售大幅增长，我们的团队改进了我们的价值主张，将近期的价格上涨限制在 1%，而受影响的当地竞争对手的价格上涨接近高个位数。

In some other geographies, our permits did not meet our expectations, and our teams are working with our franchise partners to reestablish strong value offerings, all while safeguarding franchisee profitability. The complex consumer environment that exists in many markets around the globe has contributed to pronounced regional sales variations, which has caused our system sales growth to fall short of our long-term algorithm this year.

在其他一些地区，我们的许可证未能达到我们的预期，我们的团队正在与我们的特许经营合作伙伴合作，以重新建立强有力的价值主张，同时保障特许经营者的盈利能力。全球许多市场存在的复杂消费环境导致了明显的区域销售差异，这使得我们今年的系统销售增长未能达到我们的长期算法。

The most pronounced regional headwinds continue to be in the Middle East, Indonesia and Malaysia, stemming from the impact of the Middle East conflict. In these markets, KFC same-store sales declines have generally ranged between 15% and 45% throughout the year, including Q3. We are fortunate that the vast majority of our restaurants are in the hands of highly scaled and well-capitalized franchisees around the globe, including Americana, our largest partner in the Middle East, who can weather temporary headwinds like this over extended periods.

最明显的地区性逆风仍然在中东、印度尼西亚和马来西亚，源于中东冲突的影响。在这些市场，KFC 同店销售额的下降通常在全年，包括第三季度，介于 15%到 45%之间。我们很幸运，我们绝大多数餐厅由全球范围内规模庞大且资本充足的特许经营商掌控，包括我们在中东最大的合作伙伴 Americana，他们能够在较长时间内承受这样的临时逆风。

However, in a few isolated cases, the scale and duration of these sales impacts are affecting the financial health of our less scaled or less well-capitalized partners, particularly those whose restaurants have been most heavily impacted by the Middle East conflict.

然而，在少数孤立的情况下，这些销售影响的规模和持续时间正在影响我们规模较小或资本较少的合作伙伴的财务健康，特别是那些餐厅受到中东冲突严重影响的合作伙伴。

We are working closely with those specific partners to help them navigate the challenges and implement tactical and strategic changes, including pricing studies, introducing new value offerings and adjusting development schedules to improve profitability and position business for healthy growth in the future.

我们正在与这些特定的合作伙伴密切合作，帮助他们应对挑战并实施战术和战略变革，包括定价研究、引入新的价值产品和调整开发计划，以提高盈利能力并为未来的健康增长定位业务。

As we mentioned on the second quarter earnings call, the same geopolitical pressures have grown to meaningfully, but less severely impact certain markets beyond the Middle East, Malaysia and Indonesia. As an example, we have seen in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand that KFC same-store sales performance in certain individual stores has been significantly impacted.

正如我们在第二季度财报电话会议上提到的，同样的地缘政治压力已经显著增长，但对中东、马来西亚和印度尼西亚以外的某些市场的影响较小。例如，我们看到在英国、澳大利亚和新西兰，肯德基某些个别门店的同店销售表现受到了显著影响。

Importantly, these specific pressures have been location specific and not indicative of broader global trends. Specifically, our KFC markets, excluding China that we believe were not materially impacted by the Middle East conflict, reported an encouraging low single-digit increase in same-store sales.

重要的是，这些特定压力是特定于地点的，并不代表更广泛的全球趋势。具体来说，我们的 KFC 市场（不包括我们认为未受到中东冲突实质性影响的中国市场）报告了同店销售额令人鼓舞的低个位数增长。

As we shift to the U.S., the overall QSR industry is navigating a complex consumer environment. Of course, our scale and digital capabilities are an even bigger advantage right now and our powerhouse Taco Bell business, which represents 75% of our U.S. profit, is thriving. While our Pizza Hut and KFC businesses are more challenged in this environment, we have fantastic leaders in place in these businesses who are working through revised strategies to create a step change in the results.

随着我们转向美国，整体快餐行业正在应对复杂的消费者环境。当然，我们的规模和数字能力现在是更大的优势，而我们的主力业务塔可钟（Taco Bell），占我们美国利润的 75%，正在蓬勃发展。虽然我们的必胜客和肯德基业务在这种环境中面临更多挑战，但我们在这些业务中拥有出色的领导者，他们正在通过修订的策略努力实现结果的飞跃。

Overall, we achieved 5% unit growth year-over-year, an impressive outcome considering the obstacle faced by our teams. Closures have temporarily increased this year, primarily in markets dealing with impacts from the Middle East conflict and in China. Despite the strength in our gross unit openings in this tough environment, the risk of an increase in closures of lower volume units affected by the Middle East conflict could impact our Q4 net new unit growth and put at risk our ability to deliver our 5% unit growth target.

总体而言，我们实现了5%的年度门店增长，考虑到我们的团队所面临的障碍，这是一个令人印象深刻的成果。今年关闭的门店有所增加，主要是在受中东冲突影响的市场和中国。尽管在这一艰难环境中，我们的门店开设数量仍表现强劲，但受到中东冲突影响的低销量门店关闭增加的风险，可能会影响我们第四季度的净新门店增长，并使我们无法实现5%的门店增长目标。

Given the lower volume nature of these units, we would not expect a material financial impact from their closure. While 2024 unit growth will reflect a temporary reset on unit closures, we're encouraged at the pace of our gross unit openings that Chris will discuss in more depth and as we look at our 2025 pipeline, see no change in pace behind our gross opening momentum, giving us confidence in the strong fundamentals of our brands.

考虑到这些门店的低销量性质，我们预计它们的关闭不会对财务产生重大影响。虽然2024年的门店增长将反映出门店关闭的暂时性调整，但我们对门店开设的进展感到鼓舞，Chris将进一步详细讨论这一点。同时，当我们展望2025年的发展管道时，看到我们的开店速度没有变化，这使我们对品牌的强大基本面充满信心。

Now let me highlight our relevant, easy and distinctive brands, or RED for short, in more detail followed by our unrivaled culture and talent and good growth strategy. I'll then turn it to Chris to provide further updates on our third quarter results, including our bold restaurant development, unmatched operating capabilities and balance sheet position and capital strategy.

现在让我更详细地介绍我们的相关、简单和独特的品牌，简称为 RED，接下来是我们无与伦比的文化和人才以及良好的增长战略。然后我将交给 Chris，提供我们第三季度业绩的进一步更新，包括我们大胆的餐厅发展、无与伦比的运营能力、资产负债表状况和资本战略。

Starting with the KFC division, which represents 50% of our divisional operating profit, system sales grew 1% as significant unit growth was offset by the aforementioned Middle East conflict impact and transaction softness in several regions navigating constrained consumer spending. Such challenges have led competitors to introduce incremental value offers, namely to capture low ticket transactions in markets such as the U.K., France and India.

从肯德基部门开始，该部门占我们部门营业利润的 50%，系统销售额增长了 1%，因为显著的单位增长被前述中东冲突的影响和几个地区消费支出受限导致的交易疲软所抵消。这些挑战促使竞争对手推出了增量价值优惠，特别是在英国、法国和印度等市场捕捉低票价交易。

The good news is that despite category headwinds, we are gaining or holding share in several of our largest international markets as well as seeing positive transaction growth in markets like Mexico, Poland and Korea. We're also sustaining high system sales growth in larger regions like Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, where we benefited from product innovation and more stable consumer environment. Helping KFC to remain agile has been the focus of its robust digital strategy.

好消息是，尽管面临类别逆风，我们在几个最大的国际市场中正在获得或保持份额，并且在墨西哥、波兰和韩国等市场中看到积极的交易增长。我们还在非洲、拉丁美洲和加勒比等较大地区保持着高系统销售增长，这得益于产品创新和更稳定的消费环境。帮助肯德基保持敏捷的重点是其强大的数字战略。

Digital mix, now over 55%, grew 3 percentage points over the previous quarter on expanding kiosk and click-and-collect channels. In the U.S., limited time offers underperformed expectations due to a more intense competitive environment, particularly within the chicken QSR category.

数字化渠道的份额现在已超过55%，相比上一季度增长了3个百分点，主要得益于自助终端和点击提货渠道的扩展。在美国，由于竞争环境更加激烈，特别是在鸡肉快餐类别，限时优惠的表现未能达到预期。

In Q4, the team will focus on strengthening its value proposition and has recently introduced boneless innovation like original recipe chicken tenders. Additionally, the team will capitalize on the success of the KFC Rewards membership growth, which has contributed to digital sales growth over 20% from last year.

在第四季度，团队将专注于加强其价值主张，并最近推出了无骨创新产品，如原味鸡柳。此外，团队将利用肯德基奖励会员增长的成功，这已使数字销售额比去年增长了 20%以上。

Moving on to Taco Bell, which contributes 37% of our divisional operating profit. System sales grew 5%, driven by a 4% increase in same-store sales. This quarter, Taco Bell gained momentum with the launch of the Cheesy Street Chalupas, marking the brand's first innovation on the canteen chicken platform. Further momentum came from the reintroduction of the Cheez-It and investing behind the $7 Lux cravings box.

接下来是塔可钟，它贡献了我们部门营业利润的 37%。系统销售额增长了 5%，同店销售额增长了 4%。本季度，塔可钟通过推出芝士街恰鲁帕斯获得了动力，这是该品牌在食堂鸡肉平台上的首次创新。进一步的动力来自重新推出 Cheez-It 和投资于 7 美元的 Lux cravings 盒子。

The team tapped into cheesy Street Chalupa innovation to drive delivery sales by offering exclusive access to an aggregates premium members, which led to 7 daily sales records for the aggregator during the quarter. Toward the end of the quarter, the team made the strategic move to make breakfast optional for our franchise partners, providing greater flexibility to spend our marketing dollars more effectively on growth drivers such as Cantina Chicken and our cravings value venue.

团队利用“芝士街头查卢帕”创新推动外卖销售，通过为聚合平台的高级会员提供独家访问权限，导致季度内聚合平台创下了7个日销售记录。在季度末，团队做出了战略决策，将早餐产品作为可选项提供给我们的特许经营合作伙伴，从而为我们的市场营销预算提供了更大的灵活性，可以更有效地将资金投入到促进增长的项目上，比如Cantina鸡肉和我们的Cravings价值菜单。

These are platforms where our marketing spend has had significant success building new and very profitable sales layers. We expect the net impact from these changes to be less than a 1-point headwind to same-store sales growth. We intend to reintroduce breakfast in the future with a bolder, more distinctive Taco Bell approach.

这些是我们的营销支出在建立新的且非常有利可图的销售层面上取得显著成功的平台。我们预计这些变化对同店销售增长的净影响将少于 1 个百分点的阻力。我们打算在未来以更大胆、更独特的塔可钟方式重新推出早餐。

In another strategic priority involving growth through its loyalty program, Taco Bell drove impressive advancements with 90-day active loyalty users increasing by 50% year-over-year. On the digital front, where Taco Bell U. S. has implemented the majority of Yum!'s digital and technology platforms, digital sales grew an amazing 30% year-over-year.

在通过其忠诚度计划实现增长的另一战略重点中，Taco Bell 取得了令人瞩目的进展，90 天活跃忠诚用户同比增长 50%。在数字领域，Taco Bell 美国实施了 Yum! 的大部分数字和技术平台，数字销售额同比增长了惊人的 30%。

Internationally, Taco Bell focused on executing its 3 core pillars, brand, food and value, leading to positive same-store sales growth for the quarter. Very encouragingly, that momentum has continued into Q4. To strengthen brand relevance, the team is connecting more with local cultures, including most recently in the U.K. with the launch of encore hours, allowing stores to stay open late near music venues to serve fans after shows.

在国际上，塔可钟专注于执行其三个核心支柱：品牌、食品和价值，导致本季度同店销售额实现正增长。令人鼓舞的是，这一势头已延续到第四季度。为了加强品牌相关性，团队正在与当地文化建立更多联系，最近在英国推出了“安可时段”，允许商店在音乐场所附近延长营业时间，以便在演出后为粉丝服务。

We were also pleased to see our first equity store opened in the U.K. in late October with a very encouraging consumer response, giving us confidence in our accelerated investment in the brand internationally. Clearly, Taco Bell International has the potential to be a third growth engine for Yum! for many years to come.

我们也很高兴地看到我们的第一家股权店于十月底在英国开业，并获得了非常令人鼓舞的消费者反响，这让我们对加速在国际上投资该品牌充满信心。显然，塔可钟国际有潜力在未来多年成为百胜的第三个增长引擎。

At Pizza Hut, which represents 13% of our divisional operating profit, system sales declined 1% as the same-store sales decline of 4% was partially offset by 2% unit growth. The third quarter started strong in the U.S. with momentum from my hot box and a robust marketing plan for the Chicago Tavern Style Pizza, which translated to positive traffic growth for the full quarter and ahead of the QSR industry.

在必胜客，代表我们部门营业利润的 13%，系统销售额下降了 1%，因为同店销售额下降了 4%，但被 2%的单位增长部分抵消。第三季度在美国开局强劲，得益于我的热盒和芝加哥酒馆风格披萨的强大营销计划，这转化为整个季度的正面客流增长，并领先于快餐行业。

Pizza只是YUM的一部分，并且只贡献了13%的营业利润，DPZ更加单一。

However, product news and bounce-back offers were not sufficient to compete against deep value offers in the market. Throughout the quarter, several markets became more intentional in pursuing value, including China, India and countries within the Middle East. As an example, in some of our pressured markets, we shifted towards a lower price point value over abundant value.

然而，产品新闻和反弹优惠不足以与市场上的深度价值优惠竞争。在整个季度中，包括中国、印度和中东国家在内的几个市场在追求价值方面变得更加有意。例如，在我们的一些受压市场中，我们转向了较低价格点的价值而非丰富的价值。

At the same time, we are making progress in repositioning the brand over the long term, most recently hiring a new Chief Brand Officer, and have plans to improve and expand our consumer relationship management and loyalty platforms next year.

同时，我们在长期重新定位品牌方面取得了进展，最近聘请了一位新的首席品牌官，并计划在明年改进和扩展我们的消费者关系管理和忠诚度平台。

自己干才能真正解决问题。

Lastly, at Habit Burger Grill, while overall sales remained under pressure during the third quarter, there were encouraging signs of momentum as the quarter progressed. Same-store sales trends improved each period in the quarter as the team leveraged recent accolades, including being recognized as having the #1 grilled chicken sandwich by daily meal and the #1 fast food burger inside by USA TODAY. These accolades were impressive, given many of the other contenders have a broader national presence with larger store footprints.

最后，在Habit Burger Grill，尽管第三季度整体销售仍然承压，但随着季度的推进，出现了令人鼓舞的增长势头。同店销售趋势在季度中的每个时期都有所改善，团队利用了最近的荣誉，包括被《每日餐饮》评为拥有全美最佳烤鸡三明治，并被《今日美国》评为最佳快餐汉堡。这些荣誉非常令人印象深刻，因为许多其他竞争者在全国范围内有更广泛的市场覆盖和更大的门店规模。

Clever marketing efforts, combined with refinements to have its media mix using Yum!'s proprietary marketing analytics platform, successfully ignited consumer excitement driving visits to the brand to experience the award-winning Double Char and tempura green beans. I'm pleased to see this positive momentum continue into the fourth quarter.

聪明的营销努力，加上利用百胜的专有营销分析平台优化其媒体组合，成功激发了消费者的热情，推动他们前往该品牌体验屡获殊荣的双炭烤和天妇罗青豆。我很高兴看到这种积极的势头延续到第四季度。

Now I'll turn to our good growth strategy, starting with our people pillar. A hallmark of Yum! and a key driver of our performance is the strength of our talent base, including our deep bench of amazing leaders always ready to take on bigger roles. I'd like to start by congratulating Erica Burkhart, who was recently promoted to Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary for Yum!. Erica is a seasoned and respected leader throughout Yum!, who has been with the company for over 20 years. She leads by example and has earned the trust of her peers and teams alike, providing invaluable insight and counsel on key initiatives across Yum! and our brands.

现在，我将转向我们良好的增长战略，从我们的人才支柱开始。百胜的一个标志和我们业绩的关键驱动因素是我们人才库的实力，包括我们随时准备承担更大角色的优秀领导者。我要首先祝贺 Erica Burkhart，她最近被提升为百胜的首席法律官和公司秘书。Erica 是百胜内经验丰富且受人尊敬的领导者，她在公司工作了 20 多年。她以身作则，赢得了同事和团队的信任，为百胜及我们的品牌提供了宝贵的见解和建议。

I would also like to recognize her predecessor, Scott Catlett, for his years of service and the tremendous impact he made at Yum! and our brands as he starts a new chapter outside of the company.

我还想感谢她的前任斯科特·卡特利特，感谢他多年来的服务以及他在百胜餐饮集团和我们的品牌中所产生的巨大影响，因为他即将在公司外开始新的篇章。

Additionally, as we progress on our journey to becoming the leading global digital restaurant company, I'm pleased to announce Joe Park has been named President of Yum!'s Digital and Restaurant Technology Ecosystem in addition to his overall Chief Digital and Technology Officer role. He's doing a fantastic job bringing our vision to life for a fully collaborative digital and technology team across Yum! and is reinventing how the team works to drive increased consistency and efficiency in tools and processes as well as greater deployment of AI-driven capabilities, leveraging our global data assets and scaling our proprietary technology.

此外，随着我们在成为全球领先的数字餐饮公司之旅中不断前进，我很高兴地宣布，Joe Park 被任命为 Yum!的数字和餐厅技术生态系统总裁，此外他还担任整体首席数字和技术官的角色。他在将我们的愿景变为现实方面做得非常出色，为 Yum!打造了一个完全协作的数字和技术团队，并重新定义了团队的工作方式，以推动工具和流程的一致性和效率的提高，以及更大程度地部署 AI 驱动的能力，利用我们的全球数据资产并扩展我们的专有技术。

Also during the quarter, for the first time in over 2 years, we brought nearly 200 of our most senior leaders from around the world together for our Global Leadership Summit. Our technology leaders at the Summit made up the largest functional group, demonstrating our focus on leaning into our digital leadership and our investments in AI. We showcased the progress we're making on our good growth journey and what we're doing behind the scenes to reinvent how we run the business by better exploiting our scale to drive future growth.

同样在本季度，我们在两年多来首次将来自世界各地的近 200 位最高级别领导者聚集在一起，参加我们的全球领导力峰会。峰会上的技术领导者构成了最大的职能群体，展示了我们对数字领导力的关注以及在人工智能方面的投资。我们展示了在良好增长之旅中取得的进展，以及我们在幕后如何通过更好地利用规模来推动未来增长，从而重新定义业务运营方式。

Moving on to the planet pillar of our good growth strategy. Just last month, we published our annual global citizenship and sustainability report. This report highlights Yum!'s long-standing dedication and continued progress and investments in our 3 priority pillars of people, food and planet. We are on track to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 50% by 2030 and continue to make progress around sustainable packaging building upon our harmonized cross-brand packaging policy.

继续讨论我们良好增长战略的地球支柱。就在上个月，我们发布了年度全球公民和可持续发展报告。该报告突出了百胜公司长期以来的奉献精神以及在人员、食品和地球这三个优先支柱方面的持续进展和投资。我们正按计划到 2030 年将温室气体排放量减少近 50%，并在可持续包装方面继续取得进展，基于我们统一的跨品牌包装政策。

In closing, in a difficult operating environment, we are encouraged by the underlying strength of the fundamentals of our business. Stepping back, our twin growth engines are demonstrating what makes them special through share gains at Taco Bell U.S. and strong franchisee investment in unit expansion in KFC International.

最后，在一个困难的运营环境中，我们对业务基本面的内在强劲表现感到鼓舞。回顾来看，我们的双重增长引擎通过塔可钟美国市场的份额增长和肯德基国际市场特许经营商在门店扩展方面的强劲投资，展示了它们的独特之处。

Despite the numerous headwinds, we are proud of the resilience of our overall business model and our ability to deliver 6% core operating profit growth year-to-date. Importantly, our teams are making great progress in ushering our brands into the [indiscernible], leveraging Yum! scale and digital and technology capabilities to improve sales and operations, leading to improved franchisee profitability and value creation for our shareholders.

尽管面临众多阻力，我们为整体商业模式的韧性以及年初至今实现 6%的核心营业利润增长的能力感到自豪。重要的是，我们的团队在将我们的品牌引入[indiscernible]方面取得了巨大进展，利用 Yum!的规模和数字及技术能力来改善销售和运营，从而提高特许经营商的盈利能力并为我们的股东创造价值。

With that, Chris, over to you.

好了，克里斯，交给你了。

Chris Turner

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'll discuss our financial results, our bold restaurant development and unmatched operating capability growth drivers, our balance sheet and capital strategy, and provide an update on our outlook for the remainder of the year.

谢谢你，大卫，大家早上好。今天，我将讨论我们的财务业绩、我们大胆的餐厅发展和无与伦比的运营能力增长驱动因素、我们的资产负债表和资本战略，并提供我们对今年剩余时间展望的更新。

Turning to our third quarter financial results. System sales grew 1%, driven by 5% unit growth. As the third quarter progressed, sales trended below our expectations due to a more challenged U.S. environment, soft trends in China and continued pressures from the Middle East conflict. Ex special G&A was $252 million for the quarter, less than anticipated due to lower performance-based compensation. Reported G&A was $263 million, including $11 million of special expense related to our ongoing resource optimization program.

转到我们第三季度的财务结果。系统销售增长了1%，主要得益于5%的门店增长。随着第三季度的推进，销售表现低于我们的预期，原因是美国市场面临更多挑战，中国市场的趋势较为疲软，以及中东冲突带来的持续压力。去除特殊项目的管理费用为2.52亿美元，低于预期，主要是由于基于业绩的薪酬较低。报告的管理费用为2.63亿美元，其中包括1100万美元的特殊费用，这与我们正在进行的资源优化项目相关。

Restaurant-level margins were 15.8%, modestly below levels from last year, partially due to KFC U.K. and Ireland equity restaurants acquired in the second quarter. Core operating profit grew 3%. Third quarter ex special EPS was $1.37.

餐厅层面的利润率为15.8%，略低于去年同期的水平，部分原因是第二季度收购的KFC英国和爱尔兰的合资餐厅。核心经营利润增长了3%。第三季度去除特殊项目后的每股收益为1.37美元。

Our ex special tax rate was higher year-over-year at 24%, translating to a $0.09 year-over-year EPS headwind. Now on to development.

我们去除特殊项目后的税率同比上升至24%，导致每股收益同比下降0.09美元。接下来谈谈发展。

In the third quarter, we achieved a significant development milestone, surpassing 60,000 restaurants worldwide. Overall, we increased our unit count by 547 units, reflecting 1,029 gross openings and 482 closures. KFC drove Yum!'s unit growth with the team opening 685 gross units led by China, India, Thailand and Japan.

在第三季度，我们实现了一个重要的发展里程碑，全球餐厅数量超过 60,000 家。总体而言，我们的单位数量增加了 547 个单位，反映出 1,029 家新开业和 482 家关闭。肯德基推动了百胜的单位增长，团队在中国、印度、泰国和日本的带领下开设了 685 家新店。

Notably, we've seen an acceleration this past year in net new unit expansion in markets like Italy, the Philippines and South Africa. Most of our key KFC markets report paybacks less than 5 years, and as a result, we continue to see a strong appetite by franchisees for unit growth.

值得注意的是，去年我们在意大利、菲律宾和南非等市场的新净单位扩张有所加速。我们大多数主要的肯德基市场报告的回报期不到 5 年，因此，我们继续看到特许经营商对单位增长的强烈需求。

Domino's Pizza是3年。

In Saudi Arabia, for example, we expect our store count this year to grow by nearly 30 restaurants with paybacks still under 3 years despite conflict-related sales pressures.

例如，在沙特阿拉伯，我们预计今年的门店数量将增加近 30 家餐厅，尽管受到冲突相关的销售压力，但回报期仍在 3 年以内。

Turning to Pizza Hut. We added 63 units this quarter, driven by 292 gross unit openings offset by 229 closures. New unit openings were led by China, India and the United States. Taco Bell added nearly 50 gross units, led by the U.S., while 14 other countries contributed to growth. Recall, Yum! China went through a portfolio restructuring earlier this year, resulting in 60 closures in the first half of the year.

转向必胜客。我们在本季度新增了 63 个单位，主要是由于 292 个新单位的开业被 229 个关闭所抵消。新单位的开业主要集中在中国、印度和美国。塔可钟新增了近 50 个单位，主要由美国带动，同时还有其他 14 个国家贡献了增长。回顾一下，百胜中国在今年早些时候进行了投资组合重组，导致上半年关闭了 60 个单位。

Excluding China, Taco Bell International's unit count increased 7% year-over-year. Last month, we also opened our first store in Bosnia and our first equity store in the U.K. We expect to open several equity Taco Bell U.K. stores by year-end, providing a fantastic test bed to generate insights to guide the business model, including an innovation, pricing, technology and restaurant experience.

不包括中国，Taco Bell International 的单位数量同比增长了 7%。上个月，我们还在波斯尼亚开设了第一家门店，并在英国开设了第一家自营店。我们预计在年底前开设几家自营的 Taco Bell 英国门店，为生成指导商业模式的见解提供一个绝佳的测试平台，包括创新、定价、技术和餐厅体验。

Moving to our digital and technology initiatives. We continue to make great progress on both of the parallel phases of our journey. Recall, the first phase is focused on acquiring, building and scaling a comprehensive suite of platforms to enable ownership of our data, control of the digital ecosystem speed of innovation and cost advantages. These foundational platforms include aside, our young, cloud-first point-of-sale system, our e-commerce engine, our delivery optimization platform, Dragon Tail, Super App, an integrated restaurant management platform for team members, restaurant general managers and area coaches, and a scalable global data platform that houses over 80% of our transaction data.

转到我们的数字化和技术创新方面。我们在旅程的两个并行阶段都取得了巨大进展。回顾一下，第一个阶段的重点是获取、构建和扩展一整套平台，以便实现数据所有权、控制数字生态系统、加快创新速度和降低成本。这些基础平台包括我们的年轻的云优先销售点系统（aside）、电子商务引擎、配送优化平台（Dragon Tail）、超级应用程序、为团队成员、餐厅总经理和区域教练提供的集成餐厅管理平台，以及一个可扩展的全球数据平台，存储着超过80%的交易数据。

In the second phase, we are focused on maximizing the value creation potential of our platforms through AI and by leveraging our extensive data assets. We believe we are still only scratching the surface of the full value creation potential of our capabilities with exciting innovations, including One Touch labor scheduling and inventory management, consumer feedback dashboards, quality control monitoring and personalized AI-driven marketing, to name a few. Let me now discuss additional digital and technology accomplishments for Q3 across our easy experiences, easy operations and easy insights pillars. I'll begin with our easy experiences pillar, focused on providing frictionless experiences to our consumers.

在第二阶段，我们的重点是通过人工智能和利用我们庞大的数据资产，最大化我们平台的价值创造潜力。我们相信，我们仍然只是触及了我们能力的全部价值创造潜力，未来将有许多令人兴奋的创新，包括“一键式”劳动排班和库存管理、消费者反馈仪表盘、质量控制监测以及个性化的人工智能驱动的营销等。接下来，我将讨论第三季度在“轻松体验”、“轻松运营”和“轻松洞察”三大支柱下的其他数字化和技术成就。我将从“轻松体验”支柱开始，专注于为消费者提供无障碍体验。

瞎扯，第一步还没有做好。

Taco Bell is currently working on 2 significant digital initiatives in the drive-through, voice AI and loyalty program enhancements. Drive-through voice AI continue to scale across our network with many franchisees eager to test this new innovation. To date, we have processed over 2 million successful orders with the system now in place in over 300 Taco Bell U.S. stores, making Taco Bell the largest QSR voice AI brand in the world.

塔可钟目前正在推动两个重要的数字化举措：自动点餐语音AI和忠诚度计划的升级。自动点餐语音AI在我们的网络中持续扩展，许多特许经营商都渴望测试这一新创新。截至目前，我们已经处理了超过200万笔成功订单，该系统已在美国300多家塔可钟门店上线，使塔可钟成为全球最大的快餐语音AI品牌。

没有一套统一的软件系统。

For loyalty, Taco Bell is using its connected ecosystem to allow loyalty consumers to identify themselves at the drive-through and kiosk, enabling personalization of their ordering experience and earning and redeeming of loyalty rewards. This was rolled to 160 stores in Q3, and we're encouraged with early results, which clearly show an increase in sign-ups and in daily loyalty transactions all without an impact to speed of service.

为了忠诚度，塔可钟正在利用其连接的生态系统，使忠诚消费者能够在得来速和自助服务终端识别自己，从而实现个性化的订购体验，并赚取和兑换忠诚奖励。这在第三季度推广到 160 家门店，我们对早期结果感到鼓舞，结果清楚地显示注册人数和每日忠诚交易的增加，同时不影响服务速度。

As required enablers of these technologies, we have accelerated deployment of digital menu boards to now over 6,000 restaurants. Digital menu boards will be a Taco Bell brand standard in 2025, along with Yum!'s proprietary point-of-sale system side. Our other key initiative under this pillar is the rollout of Yum!'s e-commerce engine. We completed migration of a substantial portion of Pizza Hut's U.S. traffic in the quarter and are on track to complete migration by year-end.

作为这些技术的必要推动者，我们已加速在超过 6,000 家餐厅部署数字菜单板。数字菜单板将在 2025 年成为塔可钟品牌标准，与百胜的专有销售点系统并行。我们在这一支柱下的另一个关键举措是推出百胜的电子商务引擎。我们在本季度完成了必胜客美国流量的大部分迁移，并计划在年底前完成迁移。

We also recently launched the Yum! e-commerce engine in Pizza Hut U.K., our second international Pizza Hut market, and will target 2 new Pizza Hut international markets before year-end. Next, I'll discuss our easy operations pillar, where we continue to deploy our world-class technology to provide our franchisees and team members with the capabilities to operate their stores more effectively and efficiently.

我们最近还在必胜客英国推出了 Yum!电子商务引擎，这是我们第二个国际必胜客市场，并将在年底前瞄准两个新的必胜客国际市场。接下来，我将讨论我们的简化运营支柱，我们继续部署世界一流的技术，为我们的特许经营商和团队成员提供更有效和高效运营其门店的能力。

This quarter, we started to expand Super App to KFC U.S. now having reached 50 countries and nearly 5,000 KFC and 8,000 Pizza Hut stores with the technology. We are planning to nearly double the KFC penetration by year-end. Recall, Super App is our modular restaurant management platform that offers a suite of products to managers and team members to simplify their jobs and improve operations.

本季度，我们开始将超级应用扩展到美国的肯德基，现在已经覆盖了 50 个国家，近 5000 家肯德基和 8000 家必胜客门店。我们计划在年底前将肯德基的渗透率提高近一倍。请记住，超级应用是我们的模块化餐厅管理平台，向经理和团队成员提供一套产品，以简化他们的工作并改善运营。

This quarter, we also reached significant scale for our AI-powered labor scheduler, now in use in over 5,000 Taco Bell U.S. stores, driving significant improvements in labor planning accuracy and labor efficiency. At Taco Bell, we now have AI-powered forecasts, driving both our labor scaling and inventory management processes. We expect to scale these solutions to our other brands throughout 2025.

本季度，我们的 AI 驱动劳动力调度器也达到了显著规模，目前已在超过 5000 家美国塔可钟门店使用，大大提高了劳动力计划的准确性和劳动力效率。在塔可钟，我们现在拥有 AI 驱动的预测，推动我们的劳动力扩展和库存管理流程。我们预计将在 2025 年将这些解决方案扩展到我们的其他品牌。

Lastly, I'll discuss our easy insights pillar. This quarter, we successfully launched personalized AI-driven marketing campaigns that relative to traditional digital marketing campaigns generated significant increases in consumer engagement, leading to increased purchases and a reduction in consumer churn. This innovation has the potential to greatly improve our marketing return on investment and allow us to extract the unique benefits of our proprietary global data hub, and we expect it to be broadly and easily scalable across brands. Next, I'll provide an update on our balance sheet and liquidity position.

最后，我将讨论我们的“轻松洞察”支柱。本季度，我们成功推出了个性化的人工智能驱动的营销活动，与传统的数字营销活动相比，这些活动显著提高了消费者参与度，促使购买量增加，并减少了消费者流失。这一创新有潜力大幅提升我们的营销投资回报率，并使我们能够充分利用我们专有的全球数据中心的独特优势，我们预计它将在各品牌间广泛且轻松地进行扩展。接下来，我将更新我们的资产负债表和流动性状况。

Net capital expenditures for the quarter were $34 million, reflecting $52 million in gross CapEx and $18 million in refranchising proceeds. We repurchased 2.1 million shares totaling $277 million. Our net leverage ratio ended the quarter at 4.1x. As a reminder, we have no debt maturities until 2026. Our capital priorities remain unchanged: investing in the business, maintaining a resilient balance sheet, offering a competitive dividend and returning excess cash to our shareholders.

本季度净资本支出为 3400 万美元，反映了 5200 万美元的总资本支出和 1800 万美元的重新特许经营收益。我们回购了 210 万股，总计 2.77 亿美元。我们的净杠杆率在本季度末为 4.1 倍。提醒一下，我们在 2026 年之前没有债务到期。我们的资本优先事项保持不变：投资于业务，保持稳健的资产负债表，提供有竞争力的股息，并将多余的现金返还给我们的股东。

Before I close, let me touch on the outlook for the balance of 2024. We expect Q4 core operating profit growth to be mid- to high single digits, excluding contributions from the 53rd week, which we expect will add approximately $35 million. Of course, precise forecasting is difficult in this environment.

在结束之前，让我谈谈 2024 年余额的展望。我们预计第四季度核心营业利润增长将达到中到高个位数，排除第 53 周的贡献，我们预计这将增加约 3500 万美元。当然，在这种环境下，精确预测是困难的。

To finish with guidance, we expect Taco Bell fourth quarter company-operated store margins to be in the range of 23% to 24% and lastly, our Q4 net interest expense to be just under $140 million.

最后，在指导方面，我们预计 Taco Bell 第四季度公司运营店的利润率将在 23%到 24%之间，最后，我们的第四季度净利息支出将略低于 1.4 亿美元。

Taking into consideration the challenging environment, I am incredibly proud of our team's perseverance to open approximately 4,500 gross new restaurants or roughly 1 store every 2 hours, an envy at restaurant industry. Into next year, we'll continue our focus on capturing the global white space opportunity that offers significant runway for our iconic brands. I'm excited by our continued progress in transforming Yum! into a digital multi-brand powerhouse. We look forward to seeing many of you at our upcoming Taco Bell Consumer Day in January, where we'll further unpack many of these exciting digital and technology initiatives.

考虑到当前的挑战环境，我为我们的团队能够坚韧不拔地开设大约4,500家新餐厅，或大约每两小时开设一家新店而感到无比自豪，这在餐饮行业中令人羡慕。进入明年，我们将继续专注于捕捉全球市场空白空间的机会，这为我们标志性的品牌提供了巨大的发展潜力。我对我们在将Yum!转型为数字化多品牌强大企业方面的持续进展感到兴奋。我们期待在1月即将举行的塔可钟消费者日活动中与许多人见面，到时我们将进一步介绍这些激动人心的数字和技术创新。

With that, operator, we are ready to take any questions.

好了，操作员，我们准备好回答任何问题。

Question-and-Answer Session

问答环节

Operator 操作员

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Gregory Francfort from Guggenheim Securities.

[操作员说明] 我们的第一个问题来自 Guggenheim Securities 的 Gregory Francfort。

Gregory Francfort

My question is going to be on operating profit growth, but thanks for the thoughts on the fourth quarter. I think that leaves you a little bit below the 8% growth for this year. I guess, as you look out to next year, how confident are you in getting that back up to 8%? And what's the bridge maybe from what the outlook looks like this year to what might be the contributors next year?

我的问题将围绕营业利润增长，但感谢您对第四季度的看法。我认为这使您今年的增长率略低于 8%。我想知道，当您展望明年时，您对将其恢复到 8%的信心有多大？从今年的前景到明年的潜在贡献者，可能有什么桥梁？

Chris Turner

Yes, Greg. Hey, this year, year-to-date, we’ve got 6% core operating profit growth in a really challenging environment. So when we step back and look at that, we think that demonstrates the strength and resilience of our business model. The main change from the last time we updated you on the last call is that our sales didn’t meet expectations in a few key markets, including China and the Middle East, where we have outsized exposure. And as a result, we tempered our expectations in Q4. Of course, that on a full year basis, if you flow through, [indiscernible] about Q4, we likely will end the year below our operating profit algorithm for 2024. But of course, the main driver of that was this conflict situation.

是的，Greg。嘿，今年截至目前，我们在一个非常具有挑战性的环境中实现了 6%的核心营业利润增长。所以当我们退一步看时，我们认为这证明了我们商业模式的实力和韧性。自上次电话会议更新以来的主要变化是，我们在包括中国和中东在内的几个关键市场的销售未达到预期，这些市场我们有较大的风险敞口。因此，我们降低了对第四季度的预期。当然，从全年来看，如果你考虑到第四季度，我们可能会在 2024 年的运营利润算法下结束这一年。但当然，主要的驱动因素是这个冲突局势。

显然披萨更容易。

Without that, we would have had a very strong year and been on or above the algorithm. And of course, we delivered that while still investing in things that drive the long-term health of the business. Big investments in digital and AI. We talked about voice AI progressing rapidly, marketing-driven AI, 40 other AI-driven projects that are happening in the business. So that resilient business model and investing in the long-term growth of the business.

如果没有这些，我们本来会有一个非常强劲的年份，并且在算法上或高于算法。当然，我们在仍然投资于推动业务长期健康发展的事物的同时实现了这一目标。对数字和人工智能的大量投资。我们谈到了语音人工智能的快速进展、营销驱动的人工智能，以及业务中正在进行的其他 40 个人工智能驱动的项目。因此，这种具有弹性的商业模式和对业务长期增长的投资。

显然在瞎扯，极大概率没有做好。

We’re still working through the plans for 2025. We’ll share an update, as we always do, on the next call. But there’s no major things that are unusual right now as we look at that 2025 plan. But when we think about the long-term trajectory of the business, our dual growth engines continue to perform and our digital capabilities continue to power the business.

我们仍在制定 2025 年的计划。我们会在下次电话会议上分享更新，就像我们一直以来所做的那样。但目前来看 2025 年的计划没有什么特别的事情。不过，当我们考虑业务的长期发展轨迹时，我们的双重增长引擎继续表现良好，我们的数字能力继续推动业务发展。

Operator 操作员

Our next question comes from Brian Bittner from Oppenheimer.

接下来的问题来自 Oppenheimer 的 Brian Bittner。

Brian Bittner

Just a confirmation question and then a follow-up on Taco Bell, just on the guidance for the fourth quarter as it relate to mid- to high single-digit core operating profit growth. Are you able to talk about the base case for global same-store sales that does underpin that outlook by any chance?

只是一个确认问题，然后是关于塔可钟的后续问题，只是关于第四季度的指导意见，因为它涉及到中到高个位数的核心营业利润增长。您能否谈谈全球同店销售的基本情况是否有可能支撑这一前景？

And just on Taco Bell, very strong relative performance, obviously, with your 4% same-store sales. And you mentioned that you were the best ranked by consumers in value within QSR during the quarter and it obviously happens at a time where the industry got way more aggressive. So just curious how you protected or even expanded your value positioning in this environment? And is there any new value ideas in the hopper as we move into 2025, particularly as a few large QSRs are eager to put more permanent value on their menu?

仅在塔可钟方面，显然以 4%的同店销售额表现非常强劲。您提到在本季度内，您在 QSR 中被消费者评为价值最佳，而这显然发生在行业变得更加激进的时候。所以我很好奇您是如何在这种环境中保护甚至扩大您的价值定位的？随着我们进入 2025 年，是否有任何新的价值理念，特别是一些大型 QSR 渴望在其菜单上增加更多永久价值？

David Gibbs

Yes. Thanks, Brian. I’m glad you pointed out the Taco Bell’s strength, it’s obviously something we’re incredibly proud of. And you can see that strength is evident in the U.S. with the plus 4. We were also positive in international.

是的。谢谢，布莱恩。我很高兴你指出了塔可钟的优势，这显然是我们非常自豪的事情。你可以看到这种优势在美国表现得很明显，增长了 4%。我们在国际上也表现良好。

And the other thing I’ll share is that, that momentum has continued into Q4. A lot of it is what you said. It has to do with the unique way that Taco Bell can provide value with products that nobody else has. Really, if you think about it, Taco Bell can provide a product that is a value product, that’s an innovative product and that can help our franchisees margins. That’s an incredibly powerful set of tools that we have in our toolbox that our competitors don’t.

我还想分享的是，这种势头已经延续到第四季度。很多都是你所说的。这与塔可钟能够以独特方式提供其他人没有的产品价值有关。真的，如果你仔细想想，塔可钟可以提供一种既有价值又创新的产品，并且可以帮助我们的特许经营商提高利润率。这是一套我们工具箱中非常强大的工具，而我们的竞争对手没有。

As we move forward, of course, Taco Bell has always got ways to bring in new value. Right now, you’re seeing us launching the decades menu and then you can get some of those products within the $7 Lux Box, for example, which is a unique way to bring innovation and value to consumers. So I think we’re very confident in Taco Bell’s ability to win in this environment relative to our peers.

随着我们前进，当然，Taco Bell 总是有办法带来新的价值。现在，你会看到我们推出了十年菜单，然后你可以在 $7 Lux Box 中获得其中一些产品，例如，这是一种为消费者带来创新和价值的独特方式。所以我认为我们对 Taco Bell 在这个环境中相对于我们的同行获胜的能力非常有信心。

As far as sales guidance and everything for the quarter, it’s obviously a difficult environment to forecast sales globally. But as I said, the trends that we saw in Q3 are continuing into Q4.

就本季度的销售指导和一切而言，显然这是一个难以预测全球销售的环境。但正如我所说，我们在第三季度看到的趋势正在延续到第四季度。

Operator 操作员

Our next question comes from Jon Tower from Citi.

接下来的问题来自花旗银行的 Jon Tower。

Jon Tower

Great. I appreciate all the color you provided in the gross unit openings for the brands across the globe. I was hoping maybe you could drill a little bit more into the net unit number. David, I think you mentioned that there's a potential risk of not hitting the 5% this year. And then maybe specifically drilling into, you do have pockets of weakness across the globe. And I think you had mentioned some of the smaller operators having a hard time keeping the lights on. How should that inform the thinking regarding '25? Is there an opportunity to perhaps consolidate some of those closures into '24, such '25 is a cleaner year? And/or are there opportunities to consolidate some of those stores into larger operators within markets such that your net unit number is not under too much pressure?

好的，非常感谢你提供的关于全球品牌毛单位开店数的详细信息。我希望你能再深入分析一下净单位数。David，我记得你提到今年可能面临无法实现5%的增长目标的风险。然后，或许可以具体分析一下，你提到全球范围内确实有一些弱势的市场，我记得你提到一些小型运营商面临难以维持运营的困难。那么，这应该如何影响我们对2025年的思考？是否有可能将这些关闭的门店整合到2024年，从而让2025年变得更为清晰？或者说，是否有机会将这些门店整合到市场中更大的运营商那里，以免净单位数承受太大压力？

David Gibbs

Yes. I have a couple of things on development, and then I'll let Chris give them a little more detail. If you think about it, 2024 is obviously a very challenged year in terms of the impact to our sales in certain parts of the world and some of the consumer pull back.

是的。我有一些关于开发的事情，然后我会让克里斯给出更多细节。想一想，2024 年显然是一个非常具有挑战性的年份，因为它对我们在世界某些地区的销售产生了影响，以及一些消费者的回撤。

So for us, we're incredibly proud that this year does showcase how resilient business model is and the capabilities of the vast majority of our franchisees to continue to grow and invest in the business in this challenged environment, like American, our franchisee in the Middle East, you would think that this business would have disrupted -- this situation would have disrupted them more than it has, but they just reported. They're positive operating profit in this environment, continuing to develop. That is a unique strength of Yum! in terms of the capability of our franchisees around the world.

因此，对我们来说，我们非常自豪，今年确实展示了我们的商业模式有多么强大，以及我们绝大多数特许经营商在这种充满挑战的环境中继续发展和投资业务的能力。就像我们的中东特许经营商 American 一样，你可能会认为这种情况会对他们造成更大的干扰，但他们刚刚报告了。他们在这种环境中实现了正的营业利润，并继续发展。这是百胜公司在全球特许经营商能力方面的独特优势。

And 2024, as difficult as it is, really is allowing us to showcase that and let that part of our business model really shine. Americana has got about 2/3 of the stores of the Middle East, so most of our stores are in very good hands.

尽管 2024 年很困难，但确实让我们能够展示这一点，并让我们商业模式的这一部分真正闪耀。Americana 在中东大约有三分之二的门店，所以我们的大多数门店都掌握得很好。

As far as the risk that we signaled on net new units, just to clarify and give you a little more detail, that was risk to the 5%. Right now, the numbers that we're looking at roll up in the 4.5% to 5.0% range. So we would still round to 5% on algorithm. But closures are obviously a little elevated this year. If you're going to have a little bit of a shortfall, you'd rather have see this strong gross development mostly continuing and then closure of some lower volume stores.

关于我们提到的净新增门店的风险，澄清一下并提供更多细节，这个风险是针对5%的目标。目前，我们看到的数字大致在4.5%到5.0%之间。所以我们仍然会按算法四舍五入到5%。但显然，今年的关店数量有所上升。如果最终出现一定程度的短缺，实际上我们更倾向于看到强劲的毛单位发展持续进行，同时关闭一些低销量的门店。

If you think about the closure rate, it's probably about another 0.5% of our store base. So this is not some widespread issue to your points about struggling -- other struggling franchisees. It really isn't a widespread issue. It's just a few stores, lower volume that might have closed in the future where those closures were pulled up. I'll let Chris give you a little more color on it.

如果考虑到关店率，它大约占我们店铺总数的0.5%。所以这并不是一个普遍的问题，针对你提到的那些挣扎中的特许经营商，实际上并没有大范围的问题。只是一些低销量的门店，可能本来会在未来关闭，现在这些关店提前发生了。我让Chris给你提供更多的细节。

Chris Turner

Yes, John, let me give you a little more color on the change in net new unit trajectory first through a couple of lenses.

好的，约翰，让我先通过几个角度为你详细说明净新增单位轨迹的变化。

First, if we just look at the deceleration in net new unit growth from last year to this year on a geographic perspective, we see that about 40% of the change in trajectory comes from countries and markets in our business that are directly impacted by this conflict situation. There’s another 25% that are markets that have some impact from the conflict, not as much as those core markets, but that gives you about 2/3 of the change in net new unit trajectory that is in some way tied to the conflict situation. So that gives you a little bit of bound on it.

首先，如果我们仅从地理角度来看去年到今年净新增单位增长的减速，我们发现大约 40%的轨迹变化来自于受该冲突局势直接影响的国家和市场。还有 25%是受到冲突影响的市场，影响程度不如那些核心市场，但这大约占净新增单位轨迹变化的 2/3，这在某种程度上与冲突局势有关。所以这给你一个大致的范围。

And of course, history would say we typically work through these situations over the long term. Another way to look at it, David mentioned a little bit higher closures this year. As we said before, when units closed in our system, they tend to be lower volume units. And we see that again this year. The average unit volume of the units that are closing this year is about 60% of our global average unit volume. And so when you actually look at the system sales contribution of our net new unit growth this year, it’s going to be basically the same as the system sales growth contribution from our higher net new unit rate last year. So the economic implications of this aren’t that big on our business. So that gives you a couple of additional ways to just think about this change in net new unit trajectory.

当然，历史经验表明，我们通常能够在长期内解决这些问题。另一种看待这个问题的方式是，David提到今年的关店数量略有增加。正如我们之前所说，当我们的系统中有店铺关店时，通常是低销量的门店，今年我们再次看到了这一点。关闭的门店的平均单位销售量大约是我们全球平均单位销售量的60%。因此，当你实际看我们今年净新单位增长对系统销售的贡献时，它基本上与我们去年较高的净新单位增长率对系统销售的贡献是一样的。所以，这个变化对我们业务的经济影响并不大。这也为你提供了几种额外的方式来思考净新单位轨迹的变化。

The other thing I'll add, you asked about specific franchisee situations. As David said, our global franchise base is strong. Americana in the Middle East region has – the majority of our stores is navigating this very well. In fact, in the 22 countries in the specific Middle East geography, we only have 2 countries right now where we’re working with franchisees to transition the business into better hands. One of those processes is pretty far along.

我还想补充一点，你问到具体的特许经营情况。正如大卫所说，我们的全球特许经营基础很强大。中东地区的 Americana——我们的大多数门店都在很好地应对这一情况。事实上，在中东特定地理区域的 22 个国家中，我们目前只有 2 个国家正在与特许经营商合作，将业务转移到更好的人手中。其中一个过程已经进展得相当顺利。

Another one, we’re working with the franchisee to either address some challenges in the business or to get it into the hands of another owner. There’s some complexity always in the beginning of those situations, we might have some unit closures might have some onetime accounting adjustments that come with it. But our history would say that we typically end up getting the business into 3C franchisee hands, and that sets the business up for long-term growth and health.

另一个，我们正在与特许经营商合作，要么解决业务中的一些挑战，要么将其交给另一位所有者。在这些情况下，开始时总是有一些复杂性，我们可能会有一些单位关闭，可能会有一些一次性会计调整。但我们的历史表明，我们通常最终会将业务交给 3C 特许经营商，这为业务的长期增长和健康奠定了基础。

Operator 操作员

The next question comes from Dennis Geiger from UBS.

下一个问题来自瑞银的 Dennis Geiger。

Dennis Geiger

Great. Recognizing it's too early to talk about '25 specifically. Wondering if you could just comment high level about how you think about managing profitability as well as the team has in '24 if macro pressures continue? Maybe specifically, can you talk a little bit about G&A growth and how you think about that generally looking ahead and perhaps the ability of the divisions to continue managing cost and profitability?

好的。认识到现在谈论'25 还为时过早。想知道您是否可以在高层次上评论一下，如果宏观压力持续，您如何看待管理盈利能力以及团队在'24 年的表现？也许具体来说，您能否谈谈 G&A 增长以及您对未来的总体看法，以及各部门继续管理成本和盈利能力的能力？

Chris Turner

Yes. As I said earlier, we’ll give more of an update on the 2025 plan when we get to the next call. As I mentioned, there’s nothing that’s significantly unusual right now as we’re tumbling that plan. As we think about the puts and takes, our twin growth engines continue to perform in a strong way. We’ve shared that our gross unit outlook for next year is similar to this year.

是的。正如我之前所说，当我们进行下一次电话会议时，我们将提供更多关于 2025 年计划的更新。正如我提到的，目前在制定该计划时没有什么特别异常的情况。考虑到各种因素，我们的双增长引擎继续表现强劲。我们已经分享了明年的总单位展望与今年相似。

On the G&A front, we’ve made productivity moves this year. We’ll continue to get some benefit from those. Of course, we will have a reset of our incentive comp. So those are a couple of factors that we’ll look at there. But if I think about the long-term trajectory of our business, there’s a lot to be excited about, in particular, with those 2 primary growth engines. Taco Bell continues to outperform in any sort of economic environment in the U.S. KFC International 9% unit growth in Q3 continues to build units outpacing its competitors, and our digital story continues to strengthen. So if you look over the long term, there’s a lot of reasons to be excited and confident in our business model.

在 G&A 方面，我们今年采取了提高生产力的措施。我们将继续从中受益。当然，我们将重新设定我们的激励补偿。因此，这些是我们将考虑的几个因素。但如果我考虑我们业务的长期轨迹，有很多值得兴奋的地方，特别是那两个主要的增长引擎。Taco Bell 在美国的任何经济环境中都表现出色。KFC 国际在第三季度的单位增长 9%，继续以超过竞争对手的速度建立单位，我们的数字化故事也在不断加强。因此，从长远来看，有很多理由对我们的商业模式感到兴奋和自信。

Operator 操作员

The next question comes from David Palmer from Evercore ISI.

下一个问题来自 Evercore ISI 的 David Palmer。

David Palmer

I wanted to maybe double-click on a couple of the digital initiatives. You highlighted the AI-enabled digital marketing that you talked about, Chris, and David mentioned the AI-enabled drive-throughs in the release.

On the digital AI marketing, is that hyper personalized push marketing in the app and other? You mentioned it was a nice lift where you're rolling that out. Could you maybe give some more color about what that lift was and where the rollout is across your brands? And on the AI voice drive-thrus in the U.S. I'm wondering if that could be a nice profit driver for Yum! Brands. Any reason that would not scale quickly in 2025 and any offsets to the fees that you'll collect there?

在数字化人工智能营销方面，应用程序中的超个性化推送营销和其他方面是这样吗？你提到这是一个不错的提升，你正在推出它。你能否详细说明一下这个提升是什么，以及在你的品牌中推广的情况？关于美国的人工智能语音驱动服务，我想知道这是否会成为百胜餐饮集团的一个不错的利润驱动因素。有什么理由在 2025 年不能快速扩展，以及你将在那里收取的费用的任何抵消？

Chris Turner

Yes. Great. These are 2 initiatives that we’re very excited about. I’ll provide a little more color on the AI-driven marketing. This is something we’re doing in a coordinated way across our 3 large brands in the U.S. We’ve run pilots in each of the brands. I’m not going to share any specific numbers on it.

是的。太好了。这是我们非常感兴趣的两个倡议。我将详细介绍一下由人工智能驱动的营销。这是我们在美国的三个大品牌中以协调方式进行的事情。我们在每个品牌中都进行了试点。我不会分享任何具体数字。

But I can tell you what enables it is our digital ecosystem. And it’s really what we call the AI factory within that ecosystem that leverages our massive data assets that we’ve built, which enable us to know our consumers. If you think about in the Taco Bell environment, it leverages the fact that we have the POS in the store, the digital menu boards and the ability to actually bring these to life at the store and through our loyalty programs and through our connections with customers in the app. So we’ve got many ways to bring it to life, but it essentially allows us to do more personalized tailoring of offers and to learn and refine much more rapidly than we could before.

但我可以告诉你，使其成为可能的是我们的数字生态系统。实际上，这就是我们在该生态系统中称为 AI 工厂的东西，它利用了我们构建的大量数据资产，使我们能够了解消费者。如果你考虑在塔可钟的环境中，它利用了我们在店内拥有 POS、数字菜单板以及实际上在店内和通过我们的忠诚度计划和应用程序与客户的连接中将这些带入生活的能力。因此，我们有很多方法可以将其实现，但它本质上使我们能够更个性化地定制优惠，并比以前更快速地学习和改进。

So we’re excited about the potential of this. We’ll continue to bring it to life across the brands and across markets as we progress.

因此，我们对这一潜力感到兴奋。随着我们的进展，我们将继续在各个品牌和市场中将其实现。

On the voice AI side, really, we’re driven by how do we enhance the consumer and customer experience in our restaurants and how do we enhance the team member experience. And so far, the results in Taco Bell with voice AI have been outstanding on both fronts. The customer response has been very positive, and our team members really enjoy having what they call an extra pair of hands in the restaurant to help them operate the store. Our rollout pace this year has been much faster than we originally envisioned going into the year, and I think that speaks to how our operators are seeing the capability and how our franchisees are seeing the capability.

在语音人工智能方面，我们真正的驱动力是如何提升消费者和顾客在我们餐厅的体验，以及如何提升团队成员的体验。到目前为止，塔可钟在语音人工智能方面的结果在这两个方面都非常出色。顾客的反应非常积极，我们的团队成员也非常喜欢在餐厅里有他们称之为“额外一双手”的帮助来运营商店。今年我们的推广速度比年初设想的要快得多，我认为这说明了我们的运营商和特许经营商对这一能力的看法。

Operator 操作员

The next question comes from John Ivankoe from JPMorgan.

下一个问题来自摩根大通的 John Ivankoe。

John Ivankoe

In your prepared remarks, you really did touch on many digital initiatives, many of which have yet to get to the hands of franchisees fully, especially on a global basis. So the question is on the previous Yum! language bending the curve on G&A.

在你们的准备发言中，你确实提到了许多数字化举措，其中很多还没有完全落实到特许经营商手中，特别是在全球范围内。那么，问题是关于之前Yum!提到的在管理费用（G&A）方面扭转趋势的情况。

If there's not further opportunity in '25, you talked about it there is, longer term, how much of an opportunity do we have to use fee collection from franchisees that will significantly drive their own profitability and ease of running their own businesses to kind of think about fee recapture, if you will, on a basis points of franchisee sales basis. I mean your sales base is so big, collecting even 50 or 100 basis points of franchise sales would obviously be very significant in terms of your total G&A spend. So I wanted to see if we could have an opportunity today to kind of think about the longer-term potential of that?

如果在2025年没有更多的机会，你提到的是长期来看存在机会，那么我们在使用来自特许经营商的费用收取方面，有多少机会能够显著推动他们自身的盈利能力和简化他们经营的难度，从而考虑费用回收，或者说，基于特许经营商销售额的基点来进行回收。你的销售基数如此庞大，即使收取50或100个基点的特许经营销售额，显然对于你们的整体管理费用（G&A）支出来说将是非常显著的。所以我想看看今天是否有机会讨论一下这种长期潜力的可能性？

David Gibbs

Yes. Thanks, John. Just a couple of high-level comments on that. I know you and David asked a similar question in that regard. Our goal with technology is to give our franchisees the absolute best technology in the industry, better than any of our peers at the lowest possible cost, better than they can get anywhere else. That is our north star when it comes to tech. We know that if they get that tech in their restaurants and it drives sales and drives improvement in their business models, like voice AI is doing improving their margins by cutting labor, they’ll build more stores, top line will grow more. And that’s the best way for us to leverage technology to drive profitability in the business.

是的。谢谢，约翰。对此我有几点高层次的评论。我知道你和大卫在这方面问了类似的问题。我们在技术方面的目标是为我们的特许经营商提供行业中绝对最好的技术，比任何同行都好，并且以最低的成本，比他们在其他地方能获得的更好。这是我们在技术方面的北极星。我们知道，如果他们在餐厅中使用这些技术，并推动销售和改善他们的商业模式，比如语音人工智能通过减少劳动力来提高他们的利润率，他们将开设更多的店铺，收入将增长更多。这是我们利用技术推动业务盈利的最佳方式。

Of course, we’re making investments. We will recover those investments. But voice AI is a great example. We’re providing that to our franchisees at what we believe is a much lower cost than our competitors in the industry are having to pay for other third-party solutions. And we will continue to do that, and that is our mission.

当然，我们正在进行投资。我们将收回这些投资。但语音人工智能是一个很好的例子。我们以比业内竞争对手为其他第三方解决方案支付的成本低得多的价格向我们的特许经营商提供这一服务。我们将继续这样做，这就是我们的使命。

Operator 操作员

The next question comes from David Tarantino from Baird.

下一个问题来自 Baird 的 David Tarantino。

David Tarantino

My question, David, I think you mentioned that as part of your response to a question, that the comp trend you saw in the third quarter carried over into Q4. I just wanted to make sure that, that comment was directly related to Taco Bell and not the global business. And I guess, secondly, I was wondering if you could comment on the KFC segment, and the comparison does get quite a bit better or easier in the fourth quarter, but I know you still have some macro pressures you're dealing with. So any sort of directional commentary on the KFC business and how we should think about that for the fourth quarter would be great.

大卫，我的问题是，我想你提到过在回答一个问题时，你在第三季度看到的趋势延续到了第四季度。我只是想确认一下，这个评论是直接与塔可钟相关的，而不是全球业务。其次，我想知道你能否评论一下肯德基的情况，第四季度的比较确实会好一些或更容易一些，但我知道你仍然面临一些宏观压力。所以关于肯德基业务的任何方向性评论，以及我们应该如何看待第四季度的情况，将会很有帮助。

David Gibbs

Yes. On Taco, if the comment was on Taco Bell in terms of sales trends where we sit in the quarter, we feel good about being able to continue the momentum from Q3, but in the U.S. and internationally.

是的。关于塔可钟，如果评论是关于塔可钟在销售趋势方面我们在本季度的位置，我们对能够在美国和国际上继续第三季度的势头感到满意。

Now of course, Taco Bell is a little bit easier to forecast because Taco Bell’s global store footprint is really unaffected by the conflict. It’s a lot harder to forecast KFC.

当然，现在塔可钟的预测要容易一些，因为塔可钟的全球门店分布实际上不受冲突影响。预测肯德基要困难得多。

What I will say is we haven’t really gotten to the point where even though we’re past the 1-year anniversary of the conflict, we haven’t gotten to the point where it really started to impact sales. So we don’t know how sales will behave once we get to that lap.

我要说的是，尽管冲突已经过去了一周年，但我们还没有真正到达它开始影响销售的地步。所以我们不知道一旦到达那个节点，销售会如何表现。

But certainly, the lap will get better, and that should lead to a change in the trajectory of the KFC sales.

但可以肯定的是，情况会好转，这应该会导致肯德基销售轨迹的变化。

Operator 操作员

That is the end of the Q&A session. So I'll now hand over to David Gibbs for closing remarks.

问答环节到此结束。现在我将把时间交给大卫·吉布斯做结束发言。

David Gibbs

Great. I appreciate everybody’s time today. We’re excited about the upcoming January 28 Taco Bell Investor Day. So if you don’t have that circled on your calendar, please do, and we’re looking forward to seeing you out in Irvine, in California and L.A. then for that meeting. We’ve got a lot of exciting stuff to share about Taco Bell. Thanks for everybody’s time today.

很好。感谢大家今天的时间。我们对即将到来的 1 月 28 日塔可钟投资者日感到兴奋。所以如果你还没有在日历上标记，请标记，我们期待届时在加州尔湾和洛杉矶见到你。我们有很多关于塔可钟的激动人心的内容要分享。感谢大家今天的时间。

Operator 操作员

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining, everybody. You may now disconnect your lines.

今天的电话会议到此结束。感谢大家的参与。现在可以挂断电话了。

2024-11-05 Yum! Brands, Inc. (YUM) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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