Our marketing execution, which I think has really been elevated and is resonating in a more culturally relevant way with our consumers. And then, we just call out, I think, and this is really specific to the U.S. business, the outstanding execution our whole system is delivering. We know, we’re delivering a better experience for customers. We know we’re better staffed. And as Chris talked about earlier, we know we’ve got a leading position on value for money and affordability. And so, I think as a result of all of that, we certainly believe we continue to be in an advantaged position as we continue to kind of lean into these macro headwinds that we’re obviously having to navigate.
Mike Cieplak: Our next question is from Eric Gonzalez with KeyBanc.
Eric Gonzalez: Hi. And thanks for the comment on traffic. And I’m wondering if you could expand on the pricing discussion. I think last quarter, you said you expected pricing to be in the double-digits for the year. So maybe you can comment on what that might imply for the fourth quarter. And perhaps you can give us an early look on what we should expect for 2024, whether that – would be that you expect price to be a little bit more normalized than what we’ve seen in the last few years? Thanks.
Ian Borden: Good morning Eric, it’s Ian. So let me talk a little bit about pricing. And obviously, this is specific to the U.S., because obviously, pricing varies across markets, depending on the context in the individual marketplace. I think as I talked about last quarter, certainly continue to believe that our average pricing level in the U.S. business for the full year will be just over 10%. I think what we did see in quarter three, and this is the first time now in a number of quarters, is that our average pricing level has started to come down in terms of the rate of increase. I think that speaks to the fact, as we’ve spoken to before, that inflation is starting to come down. And of course, we expect pricing to come down kind of in line with how inflation is coming down.
I think as we’ve talked about before, our U.S. business has been really disciplined in how they have continued to take pricing. We’ve put a lot of effort in over the last couple of years to, I think, the data and analytical capability that comes from our third-party advisers, who obviously make pricing recommendations to our business, including our franchisees, who obviously make their own pricing decisions. And I think the fact that we continue to maintain that leadership position in both value for money and affordability speaks to the fact that even though we’ve obviously had elevated pricing levels on the back of elevated cost and inflationary pressures, that we have been able to execute that in a way that has minimized, the resistance from the customer and maximize the flow-through that we’re getting as a result of those price increases.
And I would say our flow-through, continues to kind of be in line with historical norms, which I think speaks to the capability and the position that we’ve been able to deliver with pricing. So again, I think we’ve talked about moderation. I think part of that will be pricing if inflation continues to kind of come down as we look forward.
Mike Cieplak: Our next question is from Dennis Geiger with UBS.
Dennis Geiger: Great. Thank you. I wanted to just ask a bit more on how you’re thinking about maintaining that underlying momentum and share gains in the U.S. As you think about some of the key drivers in place across the 3Ds, the operational execution that you’re speaking to value the Ready on Arrival, Best Burger, et cetera. Chris, can you sort of impact latest thoughts on some of the most impactful traffic and sales opportunities into next year and even beyond? Thank you.
Chris Kempczinski: Great. Well, thanks for the question. I guess I’d start with I look forward to seeing you at December 6, this we’ll get into a lot more in that about how we see the outlook for next year and some of the specific things that, we’ve got planned to continue to drive the business. But I would say, broadly, we think our strategy – our Accelerating the Arches strategy still has a lot of runway in it. Each of the growth pillars, the marketing core menu and 4Ds, we think that there’s still a lot more that we can do underneath each of those. Again, we’ll be more specific about what that is on December 6. And then if you think about more broadly, what’s happening right now is this business is starting to amass on the digital side some pretty significant scale.
And the scale that we’re building on the digital side opens up a lot of opportunities that we think, quite honestly, are going to be difficult for our competitors to match. And so, when you take our physical presence, having more restaurants in the U.S. than anyone else, our digital presence, which is bigger than anybody else in the U.S., along with great execution, which we’re seeing with strong consumer satisfaction scores, our service times are down roughly nine seconds in the quarter. They’re down slightly less than that, but still down, I think, about seven seconds on the full year, we’re in a really strong position in the U.S. to continue the growth that we’ve got.
