Warren Liu, author of KFC in China: Recipe for Success, sent the following response to our recent blog post on KFC and McDonald’s in China…
I find it interesting that:
1. You were “sitting next to a McDonald’s representative” with all those contrarian facts; and yet, neither you nor your “McDoanld’s representative” neighbor (not a stranger, I hope ?) chose to querry me at the end of my presentation, either in public or in private. I wonder why. Clearly, judging from your article below, you are not shy.
2. You seem to question the accuracy of the public statements and statistics which I provided on KFC China; and yet, you seem willing to believe private statements made by your “Mcdonald’s representative” about KFC restaurants being “holes in a wall,” delivering lower profitability compared to McDoanld’s in China, etc.
For your information, I have no “inside track” into KFC China’s financials, at least not since Y2000.
All financial data I have about KFC China came from Yum Brands’ annual reports and other public sources. I tried to obtain the same financial data about McDonald’s China, and failed. If you know a way for me to obtain publicly available data for McDonald’s China operation, please let me know, and I shall be grateful.
Until then, I am content with letting the (publicly available) financial statements and facts speak for themselves. Please feel free to raise any contrarian suggestion/opinion, preferrably in a face-to-face format, instead of behind-the-back.
Last, but not the least, I’d like to request that you print this email message in the same press medium in which you have chosen to print your review of my recent talk at the FCC in Hong Kong. That is, of course, assuming if you are a gentleman.
I hope Mr Liu is now satisfied that I am – or at least aspire to be – a gentleman. He might also console himself with the fact that his book has now received two plugs in this blog (although it remains to be seen if the WSJ’s China Journal picks up on the second one). A review of KFC in China is scheduled to appear in the next issue of China Economic Review.
