For Yum!, the results in China just keep getting better; the company already opens more new restaurants there in a year than in any other market. In 2004, Yum! China recorded operating profits of US$200 million, a 20% increase on the previous year, and when this year’s figures are released shareholders will be anticipating more of the same. Remarkably, the group now earns more from its China division (which includes Taiwan and, curiously, Thailand) than it earns in the US; and at a time when the fast-food sector at home is still struggling to adapt to increasingly health-conscious consumers, it is the super-sized profits coming from China that have caused the value of Yum! stock to double since 2003.