Yum China Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:YUMC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Joey Wat: Sijie, thank you. As I mentioned earlier, the Chinese New Year recovery is encouraging. The momentum is good. And we also saw good recovery across the region. And in particular, in some Tier 2 city like Changzhou, or Jinan or Jinhua because Pizza Hut is a tourist destination for domestic traveling. So they benefit from the CNY. And then our lower-tier city also benefit because people have not been able to go home for three years. So we’re happy to see that. But our caution is on post-Chinese New Year trading because while all this happy improvements are happening, we are also cautious that the value for money, the quarter spending is also happening. So, therefore, while we are happy to see the traffic coming back, we still focus a lot on value promotion to get our customers through the door.

Going forward, our focus right now is look at the post-Chinese New Year trading, because particularly when they are concerned about economy and macro situation, the customer spending post-state holiday might be cautious. And that’s not only specific to Chinese. I spent 10 years in UK, and I think that consumer behavior is consistent across all countries or everywhere. It’s just natural human behavior. So, therefore, we have that cautious optimistic preparation towards January and February trading as the holistic trading period itself just January. Thank you, Sijie.

Andy Yeung: Yeah, Sijie. And I just want to add a little bit to Joey’s comments. I think in general, we are very encouraged, obviously, by the new cold coffee and then also the Chinese New Year trading period. And so we are optimistic for the year. I think things are looking brighter. But I think what we’re trying to say is that we do not take sales or grow for granted. We believe that like steel, there’s going to be uncertainty and change ahead, and we’re going to work hard to drive that sales growth and then be disciplined about our store expansion. And so as the whole thing would say, we plan for the best and prepare for the worst. And so let’s have been in the last couple of years strategy, and we’ll continue that. So quite for different scenario. Thank you, Sijie.

Lin Sijie: Thank you, Joey and Andy.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from Ethan Wang from CLSA. Please go ahead.

Ethan Wang: Thank you. Good morning Joey and Andy. My question is on supply chain, which is very important to our business, both during COVID and post-COVID, but largely ignored by market some time. So we noticed that we have made a very strong inventory due to carbon footprint on Scope 3 that may apply to our supply chain as well. So just wondering, does that mean we make some changes in regard to our supply chain choice, or we may make some investment to our substantial partners to achieve our goal, and how that’s going to affect our business going forward? Thank you.

Andy Yeung: Hi, Ethan, thank you for your questions. In terms of supply chain, I think, obviously, it continues to be a very important advantage for us. And it’s very important to our long-term sustainable growth. And so for supply chain, we will — in the next couple of years, we’ll continue our — as we mentioned in the previous Investor Day, we will step up investments in supply chain and other infrastructure. Obviously, we’ll be expanding our footprint in terms of our store for our supply chain centers and then also including automation, but also investment to reduce carbon footprint, as you mentioned. Now, obviously, it’s very important for us to work with our supplier base, our supplier base, our supplier partner to what you will recall.

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