{"id":32364,"date":"2023-05-03T15:20:33","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T15:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/taco-bell-parent-yum-brands\/"},"modified":"2023-05-03T15:24:24","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T15:24:24","slug":"pizza-hut-parent-yum-brands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/pizza-hut-parent-yum-brands\/","title":{"rendered":"Pizza Hut-parent Yum Brands profit sliced by promotions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Deborah Mary Sophia<\/p>\n<p>(Reuters) -Yum Brands Inc missed Wall Street estimates for first-quarter profit on Wednesday, as the Taco Bell parent doubled down on promotions to attract inflation-wary consumers while also facing lingering commodities and labor cost pressures. <\/p>\n<p>Shares of the KFC and Pizza Hut owner tumbled more than 4% after the company also warned of a $10 million to $20 million hit to current-quarter operating profit. <\/p>\n<p>Yum Brands has banked on aggressive promotional offers &#8211; including Taco Bell&#8217;s $2 burritos and KFC&#8217;s $5 Mac &amp; Cheese &#8211; as well as new menu items to attract more low-income customers, helping total same-store sales jump 8% in the March quarter, handily beating estimates of a 5.45% increase.<\/p>\n<p>However, along with higher food and labor costs, foreign exchange pressures and ramped up investments in automation and digital business, the aggressive promotions largely drove a 25% slump in profit. <\/p>\n<p>The earnings miss &#8220;was a little bit surprising when you consider what everyone else has reported. You&#8217;ve seen very positive results (from restaurants) across the board,&#8221; Edward Jones analyst Brian Yarbrough said. <\/p>\n<p>McDonald&#8217;s Corp, Burger King parent Restaurant Brands and Chipotle Mexican Grill all topped quarterly sales and profit estimates on the back of price hikes and robust demand.        <\/p>\n<p>Inflationary pressures were now abating and trending back to pre-pandemic patterns, Chief Financial Officer Chris Turner told Reuters, adding the company expects U.S. food inflation to be in the low-single-digit range for the full year. <\/p>\n<p>Labor challenges were also easing, with the company seeing job application rates increase while staffing levels were either at or near 2019 levels.<\/p>\n<p>Excluding special items, it earned $1.06 per share, missing estimates of $1.13, according to Refinitiv data. <\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Sriraj Kalluvila)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/pizza-hut-parent-yum-brands\/file-photo-people-walk-by-a-taco-bell-and-pizza\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ420EP-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ420EP-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Deborah Mary Sophia (Reuters) -Yum Brands Inc missed Wall Street estimates for first-quarter profit on Wednesday, as the Taco Bell parent doubled down on promotions to attract inflation-wary consumers while also facing lingering commodities and labor cost pressures. Shares of the KFC and Pizza Hut owner tumbled more than 4% after the company also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-32364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ420EP-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32364"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32789,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32364\/revisions\/32789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}