Yum! Restaurants International's Oleg Pisklov said today that the company plans to open between 60 and 70 restaurants in 2013 in Russia and other Commonwealth of Independent States.
According to Fox Business News, Yum is looking for new franchise partners to help with this expansion strategy. Currently, Yum has about 216 restaurants in CIS, which includes several ex-Soviet Union countries such as Russia and Kazakhstan.
Through franchising, Yum opened 35 restaurants in the CIS in 2012. The company plans to nearly double its chain to around 460 in the region by 2015, according to the story.
During last week's earnings call, Yum! president Richard Carucci said emerging markets, including Russia, are improving the company's foundation for future growth.
"Russia is a market with huge potential. For the past two years, Russia has had the highest same-store sales growth out of our 20 business units around the world. System sales grew 46 percent in 2012 and we opened nearly 40 new restaurants. Some of these are now company owned and are yielding good returns," he said. "We're gaining more and more confidence that Russia can become a sizeable, high profit business for YRI."
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