Yum China Holdings, Inc.
YUMC · Consumer Discretionary · $15.5B mkt cap · FY2025 filings · · Narrow moat ·
On the watchlist
The five investor questions
2021–2025 (latest 5 aligned FYs; v3 window cap 5): revenue $9.9B to $11.8B, increasing; diluted EPS 2.28 to 2.51, increasing.
Median gross margin 22.8% over 2y, stable.
Median ROIC 18.2%, above the 12% hurdle in 90% of years.
Net cash position — no leverage risk.
Owner earnings changed +7.2%/yr over up to the ten most recent annual observations.
Price vs. value if growth stopped today
A cautious baseline, not a price target: what the shares may support if normalized owner earnings simply hold steady.
- $911M
- $28.59
- $46.32
- $43.71
- 53% above value if growth stopped today
What today’s price assumes: owner earnings growing ~9%/yr over 5 years. The zero-growth estimate assumes owner earnings stay flat (0% growth).
How to read this
We solve for the constant annual change in owner earnings that would make the five-year zero-growth estimate equal today’s price. This keeps the existing model inputs and calculation unchanged; it is an expectations lens, not a forecast.
This zero-growth estimate assumes trailing owner earnings persist — unreliable for declining businesses. The recent FY revenue series does not trigger the three-consecutive-declines flag.
Among the current top-score group, the median current price is 238% above the zero-growth estimate across 49 of the current top 50 companies by Moat Score with both values.
Score records captured Sep 4, 2026.
Exactly which 50 companies?
FTNT, META, MEDP, IBEX, MSFT, GOOG, LULU, ANF, IDXX, TXRH, FHI, QLYS, FFIV, ADBE, LLY, MANH, VEEV, RMD, GRMN, PCTY, EAT, UI, SSD, MNST, DOCS, LRCX, MCO, CPRT, NTAP, NVDA, CORT, SFM, MPTI, ULTA, SN, ROL, CTAS, PAYC, IRMD, INTU, DECK, MORN, JKHY, TPR, LGCY, DAL, GWW, ISRG, MPWR, LOPE
Missing a usable price or zero-growth estimate: ANF.
Model details under moat-index@3.0.0: zero-growth multiple 11.1×, capped-growth comparison at no more than 18×; 9% discount rate; high-end growth 4% (capped at 4%) using min(5y revenue CAGR, 5y diluted-EPS CAGR), clamped to 0%–4%; maintenance capex uses min(capex, D&A); abstain when D&A is unavailable. This is a disclosed model range, not intrinsic value as fact.
13 years of fundamentals
The business, in plain English
Across the filed record, revenue grew from $6.9B (FY2014) to $11.8B (FY2025) — about 4.9% a year compounded over 11 years.
It earned 19.2% on invested capital in the latest filed year, FY2025. Across the full 11-year measurable filed record, median ROIC was 19.2%. Over the v3 recent window (10 measurable filed years), median ROIC was 18.2%. The Returns on Capital filter above scores it 89/100.
The balance sheet carried $30M of total debt in FY2025 against $929M of owner earnings — roughly 0.0 years of owner earnings to retire it all. Balance-Sheet Safety scores it 100/100.
Put together: Balance-Sheet Safety is the strongest of the five filters (100/100) and Pricing Power the weakest (31/100), which is how YUMC lands at 71/100 — a Narrow moat.
This breakdown is generated from the filed numbers and sub-scores above — no outside narrative, no estimates. Where a filing doesn’t disclose an input, the sentence that would need it is omitted instead of guessed.
Exact FY and FY-1 financing invested-capital inputs are required.
The explained ROIC gaps have filed inputs but no meaningful positive invested-capital denominator. Other gaps mean the item is not in the filings for that year. The series is never interpolated or estimated. The Table view lists every filed value, including operating and net margins, total debt, and share count.
Visual explainers
The filing-backed explainer service is temporarily unavailable, so no partial or guessed chart is shown.
Moat Score history
Breaks in the line mark methodology or normalizer upgrades — readings across versions aren’t compared, so a level shift there isn’t a change in the business.
Tier changesSame-methodology and same-normalizer crossings of the Wide / Narrow / Shallow bars
- Normalizer upgraded unstamped (version unknown)tomoat-xbrl-normalizer@1.1.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 26, 2026
- Methodology upgraded moat-index@2.0.0tomoat-index@3.0.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 23, 2026
- Methodology upgraded moat-index@1.2.0tomoat-index@2.0.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 20, 2026
Scores are logged append-only and never overwritten — this record cannot be reconstructed retroactively, which is exactly why it’s worth keeping.
Insider activity
Form 4 reports mix P/S market or private transactions with compensation-plan mechanics. Activity casually described as “insider selling” can include compensation mechanics; awards, tax withholding, and option exercises are shown by their exact filed class here, never collapsed into “Bought” or “Sold.”
These are disclosed filing facts and arithmetic aggregates, not a signal or verdict.
The insider-filing service is temporarily unavailable, so no partial or guessed answer is shown for YUMC.
Consumer Discretionary context
#71 of 486 scored Consumer Discretionary companies, ranked by Moat Score.
Nearest peers by Moat Score
- #69CSV CARRIAGE SERVICES, INC.71.9 out of 100, Narrow moatNarrow moat
- #70FSS FEDERAL SIGNAL CORPORATION71.6 out of 100, Narrow moatNarrow moat
- #72GOLF Acushnet Holdings Corp.71.2 out of 100, Narrow moatNarrow moat
- #73HLT Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.70.9 out of 100, Narrow moatNarrow moat
Compare YUMC with its nearest peers →All Consumer Discretionary companies on the Index →
Common questions about YUMC
- Does Yum China Holdings, Inc. have an economic moat?
- Based on its FY2025 SEC filings, the Moat Index scores Yum China Holdings, Inc. (YUMC) 71.4 out of 100 — a Narrow moat. The five questions behind that score begin at 20% each; if exactly one genuinely lacks data, the other four weights are renormalized and disclosed. revenue and EPS trend 69, pricing power 31, returns on capital 89, balance-sheet safety 100, capital allocation 68.
- Is YUMC trading below the conservative owner-earnings estimate?
- The value if growth stopped today — a zero-growth baseline — is $28.59 per share. It capitalizes normalized owner earnings at a 9% rate and assumes 0% growth. Versus a recent price of $43.71, that is 53% above value if growth stopped today. The model also publishes a capped-growth comparison, but the zero-growth estimate is the cautious baseline. It assumes trailing owner earnings persist and is unreliable for declining businesses. This is an educational estimate from primary SEC filings, not intrinsic value as a fact or investment advice.
- How has YUMC's Moat Score changed over time?
- The record logs 17 readings since Jul 17, 2026; the latest reads 71.4 out of 100 (narrow moat). No tier changes on record yet. (Methodology or normalizer upgrades on Jul 20, 2026, Jul 23, 2026, Jul 26, 2026 re-based the score; readings across versions aren't compared.) The history is append-only — readings are only ever added, never rewritten.