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☆ Young Chinese are trading Shanghai for small cities. Brands like KFC are following them with thousands of stores.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-23 | by ( Shubhangi Goel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . They're struggling to make it in big cities as the world's second-largest economy suffers from a flailing property market and slow post-pandemic consumption recovery. Going big on smaller citiesChina's smaller cities aren't exactly an untapped market. KFC and Pizza Hut operator Yum China, which plans to add 6,000 stores in China by 2026, is also betting big on small cities. AdvertisementThe cost of living crisis driving young people out of China's big cities is a trend that echoes across continents.

Persons: —, MetroDataTech, They're, Joey Wat, DPC, Canyandata Organizations: Migrants, Service, KFC, Bloomberg, Starbucks, Yum Locations: megacities, Shanghai, Shenzhen, MetroDataTech, China, Beijing, —, Yum China, Local, Fuzhou, Korea, New York City, London

☆ Yum China CEO says consumers are growing more 'rational' as rising costs cut dining budgets
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-01 | by ( Amelia Lucas | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

While economists and investors fret over China's low consumer confidence and sluggish growth, Yum China CEO Joey Wat says the Chinese consumer is growing more rational — and has been for years. Weighed down by investors' concern about the broader Chinese economy, shares of Yum China have fallen 27% over the past year, dragging its market value down to $17.51 billion. Despite Wall Street's worries, Yum China's sales are growing. "I think the Chinese consumer has become more rational over the last few years," she told CNBC. But in lower-tier cities, such as Chengdu, Yum China is seeing stronger sales growth because housing is cheaper and consumers have more cash to spend.

Persons: Joey Wat, Wall, Yum, Wat Organizations: Yum, Yum Brands, CNBC Locations: China, Yum China, Shanghai, Beijing, Wat, Chengdu, Cities

☆ A mega restaurant chain is on a mission to get half of China to eat KFC and Pizza Hut by 2026
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-07 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

"Currently serving just one-third of China's population, our ambitious goal is to extend our reach to half of the population by 2026," Yum China CEO Joey Wat said in the company's latest quarterly results report. Yum plans to fuel its growth through restaurants in China's "lower-tier cities," which host over half of the firm's stores, Wat said. That's more than twice the number of KFC restaurants in the US, which has 4,293 stores, though only half of the around 6,750 Pizza Huts in the US. Both restaurant brands also have 470 million members in China, Yum said, though it didn't say if this number accounted for any overlap. "2023 was a pivotal year for Yum China," Wat said.

Persons: —, Joey Wat, Yum, China's COVID, Wat Organizations: Service, China Holdings, Business, KFC Locations: China, China's, Cities, Shanghai, Beijing, Xiamen, Harbin

☆ How KFC won over China
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-11 | by ( Shawn Baldwin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

KFC is one of the world's largest restaurant chains, with more than 29,000 locations and a new outlet opening every three and a half hours, according to Yum! But while much of the brand's early success came from the U.S., today the majority of its growth is in China. KFC China recently celebrated the opening of its 10,000th store in the city of Hangzhou, about an hour outside of Shanghai. So how did KFC overtake other fast food chains like McDonalds , Starbucks and Taco Bell in China, and can the business continue to grow? CNBC traveled to Hangzhou, China, and got an exclusive interview with the CEO of Yum China, Joey Wat, to find out.

Persons: Joey Wat Organizations: KFC, ! Brands, Starbucks, Taco Bell, CNBC, Yum Locations: U.S, China, KFC China, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Yum China

☆ 'We are very committed to China,' Yum China CEO says
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via Email'We are very committed to China,' Yum China CEO says"We are very committed to China," Yum China CEO Joey Wat tells CNBC amid the company's bullish outlook at the Morgan Stanley Asia-Pacific Summit.

Persons: Joey Wat, Morgan Stanley Organizations: Yum China, CNBC, Morgan, Pacific Locations: China, Morgan Stanley Asia

☆ China's AI applications are coming — where it matters for monetization
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-17 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Around the same time, Tencent announced it is integrating its AI model into advertising content creation, and its own Zoom-like video conferencing app. It's also not clear how powerful China's AI applications currently are, beyond demos and select business partnerships. "Overall we see generally Chinese language model[s] still lag behind the most advanced ChatGPT version 4," CLSA's Tony Zhang said in a phone interview in the last week. Now with Beijing's green light, public-facing AI applications such as Baidu's Ernie bot can be widely used in China. Generative AI and large language model-related revenue contributed to 20% of SenseTime' s revenue in the first half of 2023, Nomura analysts said, citing company management.

Persons: Nomura, Tencent, Coffee, Luckin, Joey Wat, It's, Tony Zhang, –, Ernie, Oliver Wyman's David Xie Organizations: Baidu, KFC Locations: Beijing, China, Taobao, TikTok

☆ Yum China says tech investments let it open more stores without needing more staff
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Pedestrians walk past a Pizza Hut restaurant and a KFC restaurant, both operated by Yum China, in Beijing, China, on Sept. 5, 2020. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesBEIJING — Yum China is spending more on tech, an investment that's allowed it to open more stores without having to hire more staff, CEO Joey Wat told CNBC in an interview Friday. Yum China operates KFC and Pizza Hut stores in China, among other brands. With technology, she said staff can be promoted to manage multiple stores and support the opening of new locations. This year alone, the company plans to spend about $700 million to $900 million.

Persons: Joey Wat, Wat Organizations: KFC, Yum, Bloomberg, Getty, CNBC, Yum China, U.S, Companies, Walmart Locations: Yum China, Beijing, China, BEIJING, Yum, Alibaba

But there are new good deals all the time, you just have to go out to find them." That's what deflation looks like in China. As witnessed by Japan in the 1990s, deflation - if prolonged - can weigh on economic growth. "Good deals are needed to get consumers through the door so there is a lot of pressure on these businesses to find margins," said Ben Cavender, managing director at China Market Research Group in Shanghai. Restaurant worker Dong went to a wet market in central Beijing around lunchtime on Thursday, but did not buy anything.

Persons: Gao Yi, Ben Cavender, Zhu Danpeng, Joey Wat, Dong, Sophie Yu, Marius Zaharia, Sam Holmes Organizations: China Market Research Group, Guangdong Provincial Food Safety, Alliance, HK, KFC, Reuters, Thomson Locations: BEIJING, Beijing, China, Japan, Shanghai, Guangdong

☆ China's recovery lifts U.S. companies' sales as domestic consumers pull back spending
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Amelia Lucas | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

U.S. companies are reporting that demand in China is returning, boosting their sales at a time when many U.S. consumers are pulling back their spending. Starbucks reported that its same-store sales in China rose 3% in its latest quarter, reversing their declines. Some Wall Street analysts were still anticipating shrinking same-store sales for the company's second-largest market. That quarter, Starbucks' same-store sales in China sank 23%. Yum China , Yum Brands' master franchisee in China, also said its same-store sales grew 8% in the first quarter.

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