Banking on its innovations, brand positioning and expansion strategy, KFC, a part of Yum! Restaurants, expects to continue its growth momentum and clock 75 per cent growth year-on-year and also set up 500 outlets, in both metros as well tier II and III cities, by 2015 citing strong traction and healthy demand.
“Innovation is one of the core aspects for the company and last year has been a watershed year for us when we introduced various innovative products in the market. This year too we will introduce several products across categories and through this we hope to maintain our growth momentum of 75 per cent y-o-y,” said Dhruv Kaul, head of marketing, KFC.
He added that in addition to innovation, expanding its presence across the country also forms a very important part of the company’s growth plans. “At present we have 114 outlets in India and we aim to take this to a total of 500 stores by 2015,” he said.
While most of the outlets are metro-centric, the company said that it has started entering new towns and will be looking to establish its presence in these tier II and III cities adequately over the next four years. “We are witnessing a lot of traction in these cities and the appeal and reception for our products has also been great,” Kaul pointed out. KFC will continue to penetrate towns because of the prospects. It will invest about Rs 2-2.5 crore per store and they will be a mix of owned outlets as well as franchisees. According to Kaul, the company-owned stores will be internally funded.
About new introductions, he said KFC is always looking at meeting consumer needs and therefore developing products accordingly. “The market is very large and as of now we have covered all the areas including snacking. We will now design and innovate our products to make each of these categories even richer.”
The innovations have also resulted in a rise in footfalls. The company sees 10,000 walk-ins daily across all its outlets. Having tasted success with the launch of its vegetarian burger Zinger, KFC has now introduced Hot Zingers. This new product was introduced around the same time competitor McDonald’s launched it McSpicy range of burgers.
KFC is one of the major players operating in the quick serve restaurants (QSR) industry which is worth Rs 2,000-2,500 crore per annum and growing at 25 per cent YoY.
Source : Financial Chronicle
