Sonika, please go ahead.
Good day, everyone. Welcome to Americana Restaurants 2023 Earnings Presentation. My name is Sonika Sahni, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations at Americana Restaurants. Today's discussion will be held by Amarpal Sandhu, CEO of Americana Restaurants, and Harsh Bansal, CFO and Chief Growth Officer of the company. We will conclude with a Q&A session to answer any questions you may have. Before we start, I would like to remind you of the disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements provided in our presentation, which applies to this call as well. I will now hand over to Amarpal for the update on summary performance.
Thank you, Sonika. Good day, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to be with us today. We will now recap our full year performance, followed by a Q&A session. I'll start by sharing highlights for 2023. We started off the year with the successful launch of Peet's Coffee in the region, with the first store opening in Dubai Mall, followed by a launch in Saudi Arabia in the second half of the year. This marks Americana's presence in the craft coffee segment in our key markets. Our investment in digital technologies was recognized on multiple fronts. Americana received the Digital Disruptor Award by Yum! Brands, as well as the Digital Excellence Award by CKE Global. This underscores Americana's leadership and commitment to digital innovation.
In line with our strategic growth initiatives, we successfully launched both KFC and Pizza Hut brands in Baghdad, demonstrating our commitment to expanding our footprint into new markets. Additionally, we successfully launched Krispy Kreme in Kazakhstan. The most notable achievement is the store growth in Saudi Arabia, with 143 gross openings in 2023, which is a record number ever in Americana's history in a single country. Finally, I'm excited to share that we have reached a monumental milestone with the opening of our 1000th KFC restaurant, a testament to the strength and resilience of the number one chicken brand globally, as well as the execution muscle of Americana Restaurants International. This slide illustrates Americana's delivery against our stated commitments.
First and foremost, despite business impact due to geopolitical tensions in the fourth quarter, Americana Restaurants demonstrated resilience by achieving year-over-year revenue growth of 1.5%. As a result of our disciplined-
Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. We'll be reconnecting with the host. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. We'll be reconnecting with the host momentarily. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. We'll be reconnecting with the Americana team shortly. Sonika, please go ahead. You are back. Ladies and... Once again, apologies for the technical difficulties. We'll be hoping to reconnect once again shortly.... Ladies and gentlemen, once again, apologies for the technical issue. We are seeking to reconnect with the host momentarily.
Michael, are we connected?
Yes, please go ahead. We can hear you.
Okay. So again, I, I'll pick up on the last statement, you know, which was on the dividends. We reaffirm our commitment to our shareholders through the proposed dividend of $130 million for 2023, in line with our guidance, as a one-time special dividend of $50 million, subject to shareholders' approval at the upcoming AGM. Moving on with the performance recap for full year 2023 results. As mentioned earlier, we added 300 gross new restaurants. These include 270 openings for our Power Brands, KFC, Pizza Hut, Hardee's, and Krispy Kreme. The company reported $2.4 billion in revenue, despite the challenging times in Q4. In the first nine months of 2023, like-for-like growth was a solid 6%.
The full year like-for-like revenue was -1.3%, which was the result of impact on the business during the fourth quarter due to the regional conflict. The business reported Adjusted EBITDA of $550.8 million, a stable growth of 2.8% versus 2022, while maintaining a healthy Adjusted EBITDA margin of 22.8%. The company generated $259.5 million in net income to parent shareholders, a marginal increase of 0.1% year-on-year, with stable double-digit margins of 10.8%. CapEx contributed to 7% of 2023 revenue, which is in line with our estimates for the year, thus supporting us to maintain a healthy balance sheet and a strong overall financial position.
The next slide showcases our efforts to continue to deliver groundbreaking restaurant rollouts across all our markets, each featuring cutting-edge concepts that redefine the dining experience and set new standards of excellence. Our in-house design and brand teams, in collaboration with our franchisors, have worked tirelessly to develop these concepts, drawing inspiration from emerging trends, consumer insights, and our own passion to delight our customers. Moreover, our pioneering concepts extend beyond just the food and beverage offerings. For example, we launched gaming zones in partnership with PlayStation in some of our KFC stores in UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar. Now I'm going to turn it over to Harsh Bansal to take us through the financials.
Thank you, Amar. In terms of new store openings, 2023 has been a year of milestones. We have, for the first time in history, opened 300 gross new stores, and as Amar highlighted, we opened 143 gross openings in Saudi, which is the highest openings by far in any single country in a year. Net new stores for 2023 were 252, which is in line with the guidance we provided earlier. The chart on the right reflects the capability of our execution machine, which we have built over the last few years. Our gross openings in 2023 were 2.6 x, and net new store openings were 3.8 x of what we have achieved in 2019.
Moving on from stores to revenue, we generated $2.413 billion of revenue in 2023, which was a 1.5% growth over 2022. This growth is primarily attributable to NSO, or new store openings, which contributed $193 million in incremental revenue. Revenue growth was positive despite a fixed impact of $106 million, mainly due to adverse currency fluctuations in Egypt, Egyptian Pound and Lebanese Lira. On a constant currency basis, our revenue growth was actually 6%. Our full year LFL revenue growth was negative, due to the notable impact on business performance in the fourth quarter, driven by the regional geopolitical situation, which has impacted majority of international brands, including ours.
The revenue in Q4 2023 declined 15%, and this was largely driven by the LFL decline of $128 million in Q4 2023. Next slide. So here we give visibility on the impact in different markets. As you see on the slide, the impact of negative consumer sentiment has been varied across markets. For countries representing between 60%-65% of our business, impact has been the least, and we expect these markets to recover the fastest. This includes our core markets of UAE and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Kazakhstan has been largely immune from the negative sentiment, and actually has delivered a very strong overall performance in 2023. In terms of medium impact markets, Kuwait and Qatar are larger markets for Americana in terms of shares. We're already seeing an upward trend in these markets in January and February of this year.
Jordan and Oman, though not a significant share of our business, have been impacted the most. These markets, we believe, will take the longest to bounce back to normal levels. Coming to Egypt. Egypt continues to be a focused market for us. Impact of macroeconomic headwinds and lower consumer spending has been amplified by the negative consumer sentiment. We continue to be laser focused on Egypt to navigate the ongoing difficult circumstances. Here you see the sales evolution since September 2023. We started seeing the impact from mid-October 2023, and it bottomed out in November, December. We have seen a gradual recovery since then. Recovery has been varied across markets. Out of the medium and high impact markets, strongest recovery we have seen is in Kuwait and Qatar, with KFC leading the recovery, given the flagship brand and the brand strength.
While it is difficult to put a timeline to full recovery, given the uncertainty, we anticipate continued recovery over the next few quarters. Now, moving on to our Power Brands performance. Despite the impact on revenue in the fourth quarter, our Power Brands demonstrated resilient performance in 2023, with a positive year-on-year growth for all brands except Hardee's. Zooming into the fourth quarter, LFL impact across Power Brands was very similar, which is around 22%. And then on an overall basis, our decline was close to 15% compared to Q4 of last year. In terms of shares, our Power Brands shares remained strong and is very similar to 2022. Also, in terms of channels, our channel share has been largely stable, and home delivery is close to 39% from an overall share standpoint.
Currency-wise, we continue to see building contribution from stable currency, with proportion increasing to 82%, especially given the Egypt devaluation, which has reduced from a share standpoint. From revenue to gross profit. As communicated in our H1 and Q3 2023 earnings call, we have seen a continued positive movement on the cost of inventory. This has been supported by the cool-off in commodities, as well as various pricing and revenue management initiatives. As you see on the chart, in Q4 2023, we saw a further improvement in cost of inventory of 3.4% versus same quarter last year, and 1.7% versus Q3 2023, which has been a significant improvement quarter on quarter. In 2024, we expect a better gross margin versus 2023.
However, we expect some dilution versus Q4 2023, as we will focus on value to build back the transaction momentum. In addition, we are also seeing some logistics cost increase, given the challenging environment in the KSA region. In terms of profitability, profitability in the fourth quarter has been impacted by the decline in revenue. We have taken proactive measures, including working with the suppliers, G&A optimization, franchisor reliefs, and rationalizing our controllable expenses to reduce the impact on profitability. Despite the decline in revenue, we were able to deliver healthy overall margins as well as overall EBITDA margins of 20%+... which are in fact very similar to the margins we had in Q4 2022. Net income was impacted due to higher depreciation charge on account of new stores and a one-off impairment of FX-related derivative instrument of $4.8 million.
For full year, we have delivered growth on all profitability measures, demonstrating strength of our platform and our ability to navigate uncertain environments. So now on the payback on new stores. Performance and paybacks are very similar to what we reported in H1 2023, which is close to two years. For calculating paybacks, we had used the PNL period till September 2023, to, to avoid any impact from the ongoing negative consumer sentiment. We remain excited about growing our business through new store openings. Given the impact of negative sentiment, we have reshuffled growth plans between markets in 2024. That will have some impact in terms of openings in 2024, which Amar will discuss in a bit more detail in his guidance section. However, we remain committed to our target of 250-300 net new openings in the medium term.
We continue to make efforts to optimize and monitor our working capital requirements. Our working capital was negative 9.2% as of 31st December, compared to 7.9% last year. Despite sales declining Q4, which impacted our inventory throughput, we have reduced the overall inventory levels versus last year by active management with suppliers and swift movement of inventory between high impact and least impacted markets. It also helped us to minimize the impact of write-offs, demonstrating the advantage we have as a platform operator to move and navigate between different countries. CapEx spend has been $168 million, which is largely driven by the higher number of openings in 2023 compared to 2022. In summary, as Amar mentioned, the board has recommended the cash dividend of $180 million for AGM approval.
This includes a special dividend of $50 million, which has been recommended for AGM approval. This highlights the commitment to return surplus cash to the shareholders through dividends, unless it is reserved for general corporate purposes. Thank you. And on that note, I will hand it over to Amar to discuss the way forward.
Thank you, Harsh. I'll spend a few minutes touching on the recovery efforts and initiatives. Americana Restaurants has been operating in the region for more than 50 years. While every crisis is not similar, there is ample institutional memory and experience within Americana to deal and navigate with crises nimbly and effectively. As we navigate the current uncertainties, our dedication to providing exceptional experiences and gaining the trust of our customers remains unwavering. Our business recovery initiatives will be anchored on four pillars, which are targeting, pricing, promotion, and marketing. By leveraging the capabilities of our digital channels, we aim to deepen our engagement with our loyal customers, while simultaneously we are committed to driving awareness and acquiring new customers. On the second pillar of pricing, we are deploying tailored pricing strategies to leverage periods of heightened demand effectively.
We're also testing differential delivery fee that will support traffic and check driving initiatives across various day parts. For promotion, through our Americana digital platforms and loyalty program, we will offer strategically planned, limited time offerings to incentivize repeat business. The fourth pillar of marketing will enhance our targeted communication efforts. We leverage our CRM platform to convey the essence of taste, indulgence that defines our brands. Focus will be on families and sharing occasions, recognizing the importance of loyal patrons and advocates for our brands. Continuing on, on our recovery efforts, we will focus on three things: value, crave, and familiarity to drive customer engagement and transactions. Value and bounce back offers ensure that visits are not only memorable, but also rewarding. Secondly, we are amplifying the essence of great-tasting food and indulgence that defines our brands, to evoke the sensory experience of enjoying our offerings.
And lastly, we will continue to leverage nostalgia as a powerful tool to evoke fond memories and emotions. We will introduce bundles and occasions, providing an opportunity for families and friends to create lasting memories around the joy of sharing great-tasting food at Americana Restaurants or in their homes... Next, I'd like to spend a few minutes covering 2024 guidance. In our outlook for 2024, we maintain unwavering confidence in our business model, our brands, and the markets where we operate. Our priority lies in nurturing sustained customer trust and stimulating transactions that will be based on the pillars of value, crave, and familiarity that I mentioned earlier. Growth will continue to remain a top priority as we strengthen our presence in existing markets, driving top-line growth and gaining market share.
We are, however, revising our guidance to 200-225 net new store openings for 2024. We will strategically redirect expansion towards countries that have experienced lesser impact, while allowing time for markets and recovery to stabilize throughout the year. We believe this is the responsible and the right decision for the business under current circumstances. Moving on to margins. We anticipate our growth margins to be better than 2023, supported by favorable commodity prices and efficient inventory management. Raising the bar on operational excellence and efficiencies is a never-ending journey at Americana. We will continue to drive best-in-class operations and productivity initiatives with a focus on improving throughput during peaks, energy efficiency, as well as smart staffing. We will continue to increase the share of wallet and share of voice through purposeful food innovation, developing next-generation digital technologies, and locally relevant marketing initiatives.
These strategies will enable us to stay ahead of the competition, drive growth, and deliver value to our customers and shareholders. Our commitment to deliver value to our shareholders remains unwavering, with dividend distribution in line with our guidance, reflecting our confidence in the long-term prospects of our business. Furthermore, our strong balance sheet provides a solid foundation to support our growth plans and investment initiatives. With ample liquidity and financial flexibility, we are well positioned to pursue growth opportunities while maintaining financial discipline and prudence. We will continue to explore inorganic opportunities that align with our strategic objectives, enabling us to enter new markets, all segments, and consolidate our position and market share of our brands. In conclusion, we are optimistic about our business and brands that have operated in the region for more than 50 years.
The strength of our team, combined with our performance-driven culture, gives us the confidence that we can continue to deliver sustainable growth. At Americana Restaurants, our strategy is clear. We are agile to seize opportunities and overcome challenges in the dynamic markets where we operate, and most importantly, we have a proven track record of executing our plans. Thank you again for joining us today, and we are happy to move to the Q&A section now. Over to you.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the presentation. We'll now be moving to the Q&A part of the call. If you are dialed in by the telephone, please press star two, that's star two, to queue your question. You may also ask a voice question via the web platform. Just a reminder that we will not be taking any media calls, questions for this time. I would also like to remind you just to ask one question, please, per caller. Okay, our first question comes from Mr. Karim Abbas from Franklin Templeton Investments. Please go ahead, sir, your line is open.
Hi, guys. Can you hear me?
Yes, thanks.
Hello? Hi, can you hear me?
Yes, please go ahead, Karim.
Hello? Okay. So thanks for the presentation. We really appreciate the slides that went into breaking down the impact of the boycotts. My question is actually more about the way forward. How do you expect some of the like-for-like trends that we were witnessing to evolve, specifically, one, the issue we were seeing in Kuwait, I know that there's a headline about visas for expats coming back. Secondly, we were seeing pressure from the aggregators. Has your stance on how you deal with the aggregators changed? Are you participating in those more now that, you know, there's been the boycotts?
Lastly, if you could share, I know you, you said there's not much of a change in channel mix in year-over-year for the full year, but in Q4, was there a big change in channel mix? Thanks.
Karim, I'm very sorry. I think we have lost the team once again. Just please stand by. Hi, Sonika. Are you back?
... Hi, Michael.
Hi, Sonika. We can hear you. Yes, hi. The first question was from Mr. Karim Abbas from Franklin Templeton. Yes, we can hear you. I'm not sure how much of the question you've picked up from Mr. Karim Abbas from Franklin Templeton.
I can repeat if they can hear me.
Okay. Can you, can you just confirm you can hear us, please?
Yeah, we can hear you, Karim.
Please go ahead, Karim. If you wouldn't mind just to quickly, repeat your question.
Hi, hi, hi. Yeah, yeah, I'll be quick. I'll be loud. So first of all, really wanted to say thanks for breaking down the impact of the boycotts very clearly in several charts. That's appreciated. But I wanna ask about the way forward. The question I wanna get to is, first of all, in Kuwait, we had seen like-for-like weakness ahead in Q3. A couple of weeks ago, we saw a headline that's saying that the visas for expats have been resolved. I wanted to hear your feedback on, you know, whether you expect that to improve things. Secondly, we had witnessed some pressure from the aggregators, the delivery platforms. Have you changed your stance on that, given the boycotts and, you know, needs have changed? Has the strategy changed?
And, lastly, I don't know if the moderator can remember the last bit of my question. Oh, yeah, the channel mix. You said that 2023 over 2022 channel mix didn't change, but did the channel mix change in Q4 over Q4? Thanks.
Karim, as usual, you know, true to form, multiple questions, right? So, on Kuwait, on the visas. On the visa situation, yes, we are hearing the same in terms of allowing some of the expats back in the country. But, you know, I'm sure there'll be a lag effect, and we're looking forward to, you know, people with families moving back to Kuwait, which certainly will boost the business. Secondly, in terms of our position on the aggregators, nothing has changed. We work very closely with the aggregators, you know, in terms of driving business both on the aggregator channels as well as, you know, maintaining share on our own channels, so striking the right balance on that. Recovery in Kuwait has been quite good.
We're optimistic about Kuwait in 2024. Harsh, you want to just comment on the channel, do you?
Yeah, Karim, on the channel, specifically in Q4, while we thought the dine-in would decline more and home delivery should be, should be more, but we have not seen any significant difference largely in terms of channels. So the decline across channels are very similar. Having said that, we have been pushing a bit more in terms of offers and other things on home delivery, so that did skew channel in Q4, but we don't expect in 2024 that should be the norm. We expect it, the channel should not change overall from a, from a mix standpoint.
Karim, just, just to add on to the recovery. So if you recall the chart that showed low impact, medium impact, and, you know, high impact countries, Kuwait is in the middle of the pack of the medium impact countries. And in that pack, Kuwait is demonstrating the best recovery.
Okay. Thanks, guys.
Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Prateek Kumar from Gulf International Bank. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks a lot. So, my question is on the guidance which you shared for 2024, that you will be able to maintain the gross profit margin. Can you throw some color, like, you know, where it is coming from? Are you expecting the revenue to, you know, go back to normal, in 2024 itself? So just wanted to, you know, understand that a bit, in detail. And the second question was, in Q4 specifically, we saw that, you know, margins are still, gross profit margins in particular, are still healthy. So, is it coming from the layoffs you have done at the store level, and, or is it like renegotiation of rentals? Can you throw a bit of light over there? Thank you. Hello?
Please stand by. We have a technical issue with the line from Americana. They will be redialing once again.
Prateek, can you hear us?
Yeah. Yes, we can hear you at this point. Please go ahead.
Hello. Shall I repeat my question?
No, no, we are okay. We, we are clear on the question. So this cost of inventory only reflects food and packaging costs. It has nothing to do with any other costs. Now, as I mentioned earlier, the improvement, as we, we have been saying in our previous calls, is driven by two things. The first is cool off in commodities, and the various other reasons are pricing and revenue initiatives, which Amar mentioned, which includes dynamic pricing, differential pricing, and others. Now, from a next year guidance standpoint, we clearly have, if you look at our margin evolution quarter to quarter, our Q4 margin is significantly better than Q1. So we expect full year 2024 to be better than full year 2023.
Having said that, we don't expect the margins to be similar to Q4, given we would be doing some value to drive the transactions and build the transaction momentum. We are seeing some impact because of Red Sea crisis, but we don't expect that to have a significant impact in terms of overall growth. I hope this satisfies your question.
Yeah, yeah, got it. Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Shadab Ashfaq from Al Ramz. You may dial in via the telephone. Your line is open.
Hello, can you hear me? Hello.
Yes, yes, we can. Please go ahead.
Yeah. So, like, how the current situation impact the medium-term growth plans of the company, specifically in terms of the number of new outlets you're planning, and, like, in terms of aggregate, how the numbers will change, and also in terms of different country expansion strategy? Also my next question is, like, how do you anticipate, like, Ramadan? Because Ramadan is starting from next month, affecting the recovery process in the geographies that have been significantly impacted.
Guidance, there's no change to the 250-300. We are just taking a slight, a temporary pause in the countries that are most affected during this year. And we are reprioritizing, you know, development towards the countries that are less affected. In terms of the Ramadan effect, Ramadan is two weeks earlier, right? You know, so it's never a clean month or a quarter, depending on the shift. As far as recovery goes, we believe during Ramadan and during Eid recovery will accelerate. That is at least what our hope is and our anticipation is. Having said that, there's also uncertainty around it. It all depends on, you know, what happens on the ground and, you know, how you know the regarding the geopolitical tensions that are going on.
However, the encouraging thing is in the last two to three weeks, we have seen quite a steady recovery, and we expect that this will continue.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Taher Safieddine from JP Morgan. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, sorry. Good afternoon, gents. Again, I think congrats on a, on a decent set of results, given, given the backdrop and the level of disclosure. So much appreciated. My question is really on the slide where you talk about the average daily sales. I mean, we can see on the red line that, you know, things are starting, you know, to close the gap versus 2022, 2023. So I just wanna maybe hear your thoughts. When should we expect, you know, this maybe red line to converge with the black line in the sense that, you know, potential full recovery?
With that, do you anticipate that, you know, it would take maybe after this, another two, three quarters, where you do these price investments and promotions and campaigns to maybe, you know, fully bring back the pre-boycott type of traffic, sales per store, and so on? So this is, I think, the first part. And the second part, is there anything you can share on, you know, Adjusted EBITDA margins and like-for-like into 2024? I mean, should we expect the year-over-year trends to remain, you know, negative and, but Q-over-Q improvements? You know, is that a fair way? I'm not looking for a number, but is that a reasonable way to think about it as we build our forecasts into 2024? Thank you.
Yes, so, you know, in terms of, the gap closing, I wish somebody had a crystal ball, right? You know, so it is difficult to come up with a timeline or a specific, you know, month, quarter on when that would happen. If this trend continues, as you see on this chart, right, you know, then, I think we will leave it to all the data scientists to extrapolate the information and see, you know, when those, those two dots meet.
Please, go ahead. Okay, sorry. Once again, apologies. We are continuing to have technical difficulties with reaching Americana team. They will be rejoining shortly. Yeah, please go ahead.
So, besides stepping for a moment, I want to apologize to everyone for the technical interruptions that we are having. This is new thing for us. Yes, while we are a very cost-focused organization, we will definitely invest in better conferencing technology after this call. So again, going back to your question, I think I answered the first part of the question, which was on the recovery trend.
Yes.
We expect that recovery will continue, and, hopefully stronger results or stronger top line as we move through Ramadan, and towards Eid. I think the second question you answered yourself, right? You know, it's hard to predict at this point, given the uncertainties. I mean, our goal is never to be below the previous year, right? And as you said, we expect quarter-over-quarter improvements.
...Okay. All right. But it's fair to assume that the low impact countries are actually on a faster way of recovery, right? You know, like UAE and Saudi should hopefully, you know, if things continue at this way, you know, we could get actually back to the pre-boycott volume into the next few quarters, right?
Absolutely. Absolutely. The, the, UAE, Saudi, Kazakhstan, Iraq, are the least impacted countries and, and, you know, all indications are that we, we would be, back to, you know, pre-crisis levels.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. Any reminder, star two for any additional questions. The next question comes from Miss Rima Albari from SICO. Please go ahead, Rima, your line is open.
Hi, can you hear me? Hello?
Yes, please go ahead, Rima.
Hi, I'm Rima Albari from SICO, and thank you for hosting this call. I just had a question about cost management. Can you just explain how you're managing the costs during these tough times? Have there been efficiencies in terms of staff reduction? I know there was an article recently about staff reductions, but is there any further reduction or have you also been possibly receiving some support from the master franchises? Hello?
Hi, Rima, just one second. We are once again, once again reconnecting.
No worry. Okay.
I think we heard your question. Just give us a second.
Okay.
Please, please go ahead. We can hear you.
Hi, did you hear my question?
Just give us one second, please.
No worries.
Hi, hi, c an you hear us?
Yes, we can hear you. Did you hear Rima's question or would you like her to repeat?
We continue to look at efficiencies across the line item. As a part of that, we also look at our organizational structures and G&A, and wherever we feel there is an optimization opportunity, we do that. In terms of specifics, our relief measures have been across the board. We have, first of all, had discussions with the franchisors, other brand principals, who have been very supportive, as well as with the landlords, the suppliers, looking at other controllable expenses. We have gone through each and every line item and see wherever we can, we can bring in better efficiencies. That will continue to be an ongoing focus for us as we go into 2024 as well.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Harsh Mehta from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, hi. Thank you very much for allowing me to ask this question. So the first question is, in terms of the market share, right, which has potentially suffered to local players, how confident is management that, you know, this could come back? Because we, we heard that the first time than ever, and, you know, talking points in terms of you're mentioning that there has been increased competition from local and international players across different categories. And this event has basically kind of, you know, pushed that market share to the local players. Do you see that sticky, or do you think it will return back? So that's my first question. I'll, I'll ask the second question maybe next time.
Obviously, in terms of market share, you know, certainly we will have to, you know, work hard to get it back, but we believe, we will get it back. If you look at empirical evidence, you know, in terms of previous boycotts, it has, yes, the duration might have been different, you know, but it always came back.
Okay. And the second question is kind of partly already addressed, but how do you see this event within the past events and, you know, what are the learnings from those events that you're kind of implementing to helping navigate quickly through the current situations? Because they're definitely unprecedented and very different than the earlier one, but what are you kind of relying on out of your past experiences?
Yeah. So I think back in October, one of the first things we did is we pulled together the teams who had experienced previous boycotts, because, you know, there is institutional memory and experience within Americana, as well as looked at data across various countries, you know, that had... that were impacted by the previous boycotts. The learning is, one of the learnings was that this time was a bit different given the popularity of social media. So, you know, the groups that were mobilized were, you know, slightly different from the past. However, our focus has been, you know, first and foremost, we wanted to make sure about the safety and well-being of our employees and making sure that the engagement level within the organization doesn't drop because of this.
So we did a lot of work, a lot of conversations, a lot of communication internally to ensure that people within the organization did not lose focus, and the primary focus is on delivering great tasting food, great service, and, you know, really out-operating everybody else. And as well as, you know, staying relatively quiet in terms of our marketing efforts, because the consumer in the early days wasn't ready for that. But over time, now we are, you know, doing more tactical, value-driven core product-driven promotions, and we are seeing positive results and positive responses to that, and which is indicated in that chart that I showed earlier in terms of the recovery trends that are happening.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. Just a reminder, once again, star two for any additional questions. The next question comes from Mr. Mohammed Ismansabiki from FICO Bank. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
Hi, thank you for the opportunity. I just have one quick, quick follow-up question on the, on the support that you mentioned, from the master franchisor. I just wanted to, understand and know, historically, has there been any precedent where, the franchisor has, reduced, the percentage of royalties during times of crisis? Not, not exactly related to buy costs, but any other, any other crisis that any, franchisee has faced in any, in the country. So has there been any precedent in the past? And my second question is on the, on the brands opening. Do you have any plans to open the, you know, your own, own brand that you already have, maybe scale up the opening of those brands, if in order to mitigate the impact or negative impact on the international ones?
So the answer to the first question is that we've been working with the franchisors very closely. Support comes in different forms. You know, I prefer not to go into specifics because, you know, that's confidential information. But our franchisors have been very supportive during these times, and they understand the challenges, and yes, every one of them has offered relief. Secondly, in terms of our own brands, you know, we have two proprietary brands, Wimpy and Chicken Tikka, and those are in our plans for continued expansion. Not at the same level as the power brands, but you know, certainly we are looking at expansion for our proprietary brands as well.
The expansion of in 2024 will still be focused on the Power Brands?
Yes, largely it'll still be focused on the Power Brands. You know, once again, if you look at history and look at more than five decades of operating experience, you know, in this region, the Power Brands continue to recover after every crisis. You know, they're household names, they have strong brand following, so the mix shift will not be significant in this point.
All right. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. Just a reminder, a final reminder for any additional questions, star two for any additional questions. We'll give another second or so. Okay, we have a question from Mr. Nishit Lakhotia from SICO. Please go ahead, sir, your line is open.
Yes, thank you for the opportunity. Hi, I have a question on the cost side. You mentioned that there is quite a bit of relief on multiple aspects on the G&A and the efficiencies that come. I wanted to know how much of that was spent during the quarter, in the sense that do you—would we see a much bigger impact of the efficiencies in the first quarter? Because the situation is so fluid that even if you had decided to, you know, let go of certain staff and reduce the number of staff in the affected countries, in the outlets, maybe by one or two people, that would have taken during the quarter, right? So we will see the full impact of whatever efficiency you brought in into the 1Q.
So that's my some kind of guidance to the management on how much should we expect in the first quarter versus what you've seen during the quarter, in the fourth quarter on that front would be helpful. So that's my first question. And the second, on the relief side, sorry, on the growth recovery, as you've shown that the sales are improving, which countries are you seeing more improvement from a month-on-month basis, January and February? Is it across the board or is it specifically certain countries where you've seen the impact of boycott, of the trade you've seen, and if you can just clarify on that. Thank you.
So Nishit, on the cost, as I said, we constantly look at cost efficiencies and opportunities. Now, yes, we have taken certain measures given the sales decline in Q4, which will flow through the full year of 2024. Having said that, as and when sales pick up, we would like to... There are certain reinvestments which we would like to do into the business. So while we expect some of the benefits to flow in for the full year of 2024, at the same time, as and when sales build up, we'll continue to invest in the business. So that's on the cost. Now, from a sales recovery standpoint, as Amar mentioned, the least impacted markets, especially UAE, Saudi, Kazakhstan, and Iraq, have seen faster recovery... And even within the medium impacted markets, we are seeing a strong recovery in Kuwait and Qatar.
So these are the markets we expect to recover faster. Jordan and Oman, specifically, we are seeing the least or the slowest recovery. And those are overall share of that, those markets for us is not significant, but we do expect these two markets to take longer to get to the normal levels.
Okay, wonderful. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. We'll just give another moment or so for any final questions. We still have a couple of minutes for any additional questions in case there are. Okay, we see a follow-up question from Mr. Taher from JP Morgan. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, sorry. Sorry, again, just maybe a follow-up question. I know it's been an eventful one hour for you guys, I'm pretty sure. But based on your experience, again, in general, I mean, you've been operating for more than 50 years. I'm pretty sure you have experience also, you know, across the QSR industry. But in general, in such environments where there are boycotts which tend to be maybe more emotional and so on, you know, the institutional mind that you have, I mean, the average where, you know, things go back to normal, what would be a fair, you know, just estimate based on your previous experiences, one, two, three quarters? Maybe just to hear your thoughts. I know this time around it's different. So that's, I think, the first part.
The second part, are you worried that, you know, with an accelerated store openings into Q4, you know, that, you know, these immature stores will have a drag on the performance into 2024, especially that, you know, the demand backdrop remains a bit challenging. Is that something you're concerned about, or you have confidence that these new stores that are less than one year old are actually gonna ramp up similar to the average that you've seen before?
So I have the two-part question, right? You know, first, in terms of, I would not want to predict or put a timeframe on the recovery because every crisis is different. However, in previous crises, it was four to six months, is what it took, depending on the markets, on full recovery. Secondly, on new store openings, we very early, you know. First of all, we had pulled back on deployment in Egypt because of macro situation, and then the boycott, you know, obviously, provided additional stress to that market. And then, very quickly, the leases that we were in progress on in some of the most significantly impacted countries, we pulled back immediately in October.
We stopped the signing and all that, and we directed our efforts toward the countries where there is least impact. I don't see any material drag on the performance from the new store openings that we've had, other than the ones that might have already opened then, but those were very few, because, for example, the most impacted markets are Jordan and Oman, and the number of openings in Q4 in those markets were probably, you know, less than a handful.
Okay. That's very clear. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much. We see no further questions. I'll pass the line to the management team for the concluding remarks.
Once again, I want to apologize for the technical difficulties. It was quite embarrassing for us, and, you know, we will be better prepared next time, so please, forgive, forgive us for that. Thank you again for joining, and hope to connect with you soon.
Thank you very much. This concludes today's conference call. We'll now be closing all the lines. Thank you, and have a good day.