Walter Hutchens’ Blog

In my international business classes I often play excerpts from Yum Brands’ quarterly conference calls with financial analysts. They illustrate nicely how something as prototypically American as the parent company of KFC and Pizza Hut is now obsessed with China. Here Reuters reports that the CFO of Papa John’s pizza is in Shanghai announcing plans to open 500 restaurants in China over the next five years.

The article further quotes him as saying greater than 20% of the company’s revenues will come from China this year. That must be wrong—they only have 100 stores in China now out of 3,000 overall. The CFO must have meant their China stores account for > 20% of overseas revenues or something like that, but in any case it shows how China’s, ah, rise offers opportunities as well as threats for US business.