Yum Brands’ global same-store sales tank 15% in the second quarter

Yum Brands (NYSE: YUM) published its quarterly financial results on Thursday that highlighted a 15% plunge in its global comparable-store sales in the fiscal second quarter. The company attributed the decline to the Coronavirus pandemic that pushed its dining rooms into temporarily shutting down in recent months.

At the peak of COVID-19 restrictions, Yum had to shut down over 20% of its restaurants (11,000 in total). It, however, said that signs of recovery were evident in the past few weeks. Yum anticipated weaker performance in 2020 due to COVID-19 in February.

Shares of the company were reported about 2% down in premarket trading on Thursday. At £73 per share, Yum Brands is roughly 7% down year to date in the stock market after recovering from an even lower £43.45 in late March. Learn more about how do people make money on the stock market.

Yum Brands’ Q2 financial results versus analysts’ estimates

According to Refinitiv, experts had forecast the company to print £910 million in revenue in the second quarter. In terms of earnings per share (EPS), they had estimated 41.51 pence. In its report on Thursday, Yum Brands topped both estimates posting a higher £920 million in revenue and 63 pence of adjusted earnings per share in Q2. Yum Brands partnered with a Russian company on lab-grown KFC nuggets last week.

At £158.37 billion, the American fast food corporation said that its net income in the second quarter came in significantly lower than £222.18 billion in the same quarter last year. It also said that its Grubhub minority stake resulted in 16 pence a share of boost to its EPS in the recent quarter. On a year over year basis, Yum Brands’ net sales were also reported 8.5% down.

Other prominent figures in Yum Brands’ earnings report

Other prominent figures in Yum Brands’ earnings report on Thursday include a 9% decline in global comparable-store sales of Pizza Hut but a 1% increase in the U.S. Taco Bell, on the other hand, saw an 8% decline in global same-store sales in the second quarter.

As per Yum Brands, KFC noted a 21% decline in global same-store sales in Q2 but an 8% increase in the United States. The fried chicken chain performed the weakest among all of its subsidiaries in the second quarter.

Yum Brands performed fairly upbeat in the stock market last year with an annual gain of more than 10%. At the time of writing, the Louisville-based company has a market cap of £21.94 billion and a price to earnings ratio of 26.49.