According to research data analysed and published by Stock Apps, a financial educational resource, KFC owner, Yum! Brands’, full year digital sales rose by 45% to $17 billion.

Despite pandemic restrictions in 2020, the company’s Q4 2020 revenue grew by 3% year-over-year to $1.74 billion, topping analysts’ estimates.

Yum! Brands launched a series of initiatives to speed up its digitalisation process in 2020. At KFC, a new eCommerce ecosystem streamlined off-premises order handling and as a result transaction times at the window reduced by 16 seconds in Q4 2020 compared to Q4 2019.

US digital restaurant market sales overall are reported to have risen by 124% in 2020, with McDonald’s also benefitting from a shift to digital, generating $10 billion from online sales across its top six markets in 2020.

In 2021, it is projected that digital restaurant market sales will increase by 22.3% to $54.97 billion and in 2022, by 16.3% to $63.93 billion.