Americana Restaurants gains as UAE, Middle East consumers spend more on food

Dubai: UAE and Middle East consumers are back to spending more on eating out or ordering in going by Americana Restaurants' latest financials.

The company is the biggest F&B operator in the Middle East, with franchises that include KFC, Pizza Hut and Krispy Kreme.

The ADX- and Saudi Tadawul listed company fetched revenues of $1.21 billion in H1-2025, which is an impressive 15.6% year-on-year increase. What this means is ‘continued business recovery across key markets’, the company states.

On ADX, the share price is down 3.49% for the month - but gained a solid 1.84% on Tuesday (July 29).

On a like-for-like basis, revenues were higher by 12.4% and pointing to the ‘strength of the company’s existing store performance’.

It resulted in a net profit of $92.5 million from $80 million, which is 15.7% higher. Americana Restaurants had gone through a tough 2024 brought about by the geopolitical situation and also with foreign exchange situations in some of its operating markets.

The H1-25 net profit also includes a one-off $7.2 million item, which came mainly from marketing cost reliefs received in Q1-2024 and 'normalized in the subsequent quarters'.

The company had $110.8 million in free cash flow during H1-2025 thus 'demonstrating 151% year-on-year growth, driven by prudent operating performance and strong working capital management'.

Adding more outlets

There were 36 new store openings in the first six months of the year as well as the integration of a further 46 restaurants from Pizza Hut Oman. It brought the overall Americana Restaurants' tally to 2,638 in 12 countries.