Tim Hortons’ parent company, Restaurant Brands International, appears to be making good on its promise to grow the brand aggressively worldwide, even though there is still lots of room for the Canadian brand to grow domestically.
Restaurant Brands International’s CEO, Daniel Schwartz, said while announcing third-quarter profit and same-store sales:
“Despite the penetration we still have quite a way to go and plenty of opportunity to bring the brand to guests across the country [and] grow across the country for many, many years.”
TH = Tim Hortons. BK = Burger King. (Source: http://investor.rbi.com)
Oakville-based Tim Hortons has 3,879 restaurants in Canada and 895 in the United States. Earlier in October the company announced a third-party development deal for the Cincinnati area, where it plans to open over 150 restaurants over the next decade.
Aiming for 10,000 restaurants globally
Globally, the Canadian multinational fast casual restaurant has over 4,700 locations, which are considerably fewer than Burger King’s 14,669 units. However, over the coming years Tim Hortons is expected to close the gap significantly.
Mr. Schwartz says he aims to take the brand to 10,000 units.
Restaurant Brands plans to expand Tim Hortons’ business through through third party deals all over the world, much like Burger King has done by establishing joint ventures in Brazil, China, China, Russia and Turkey.
In a morning conference call with investors, Mr. Schwartz said:
“There’s so much opportunity in the world for us to be developing at Tim Hortons. If you look at the pace of growth at Burger King back in 2010 when we had acquired the brand, it was actually similar to where Tim’s was last year and obviously it takes some time and a whole lot of hard work and great partnerships, but last year we crossed 700 restaurants on Burger King.”
“So, if you look at that outlook for Tim Hortons, we really see a great opportunity to develop Tim’s brand all around the world.”
Tim Hortons comparable sales grew by 5.3% in the third quarter 2015, compared to Burger King’s 6.2% in constant currency. The number of Tim Hortons restaurants increased by (net) 69, versus Burger King’s 141.
System-wide sales at Tim Hortons grew by 8.2%, and by 11.2% at Burger King in constant currency.
In August last year, Burger King agreed to purchase Tim Hortons for US$11.4 billion. It became a subsidiary of Restaurant Brands International in December 2015. Restaurant Brands International is majority owned by 3G Capital, a Brazilian multi-billion dollar global investment firm.