You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: I'm pleased to share our strong third quarter results underpinned by record breaking unit development, continued strong digital sales and the adaptability of our brands to meet the needs of our consumers in an ever-changing environment.
During the third quarter, we delivered 5% same-store sales growth or 3% same-store sales growth on a two-year basis.
Despite a challenging operating environment due to the ongoing COVID pandemic, I'm extremely proud that we opened 760 net new units; a Q3 record, with broad-based strength across our portfolio.
China continues to be a leader in development, we opened 379 net new units across the rest of our portfolio, roughly equivalent to our Q3 2019 global net new units, including China.
Our continued positive development momentum this quarter is a testament to the strength of our iconic brands, fueled by strong unit economics and a healthy well-capitalized franchise system primed for sustained growth.
Now, we'll discuss our Q3 results and two of the four growth drivers that underpin our Recipe for Growth: our Relevant, Easy and Distinctive brands or RED for short; and our unrivaled culture and talent.
I will also share an update on our ESG agenda, which we call our Recipe for Good.
Then Chris will talk about our other two growth drivers: our unmatched operating capability; and Bold Restaurant Development, in addition to providing more details on our third quarter financial performance and our strong balance sheet and liquidity position.
First, the two highlights from the quarter.
third quarter system sales grew 8%, led by same-store sales growth of 5%.
On a two-year basis, same-store sales grew 3%, which includes the impact of around 500 stores or 1% temporarily closed due to COVID as of the end of Q3.
COVID restrictions that limited mobility in a few markets, primarily in Asia, had a significant impact on sales.
However, our sales momentum remained strong, as evidenced by the fact that our global two-year same-store sales growth, excluding Asia, accelerated since last quarter.
Sales strength continued in many developed markets, including the U.S., U.K. and Canada with significant recovery seen across Europe as restrictions eased throughout the quarter.
We've also seen pockets of strength in our portfolio of emerging markets, including the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and India, to name a few.
As we previously shared, looking across the more than 150 countries in which we operate, our recovery will neither be consistent from country-to-country nor linear within a country, reinforcing the competitive advantages of our diversified portfolio and our ability to serve customers through multiple on- and off-premise channels.
A key growth driver for our business remains the continued acceleration of our digital and technology strategy, including how we leverage our global scale with technology investments to enhance the customer and employee experience, strength in restaurant unit economics and provide a competitive advantage for our franchisees.
We're seeing strong and sustained momentum through our digital and off-premise channels across our global business even as customers return to our dining rooms.
We posted over $5 billion in global digital sales with a near 40% digital mix during Q3.
We continued to expand delivery capabilities across the globe, setting a record this quarter with over 41,000 stores offering delivery to our customers.
Most recently, we acquired Dragontail Systems, which will allow us to tap into the power of artificial intelligence to streamline the end-to-end food preparation process and further enhance our delivery capabilities.
Where we've deployed Dragontail's cutting-edge technology, we found that it makes it easier for team members to operate and run a restaurant and helps our franchisees strengthen store operations, all resulting in a better customer experience.
This is the perfect segue to talk about our four RED brands.
Starting with the KFC division, which accounts for 52% of our operating profit, Q3 system sales grew 11%, driven by 6% same-store sales growth and 7% unit growth.
On a two-year basis, Q3 same-store sales were up 1%, which included the impact of 1% of the stores being temporarily closed due to COVID.
At KFC International, same-store sales grew 6% during the quarter.
Same-store sales declined 1% on a two-year basis.
As previously mentioned, increased COVID case counts and limited mobility in a few key Asian markets pressured topline trends in the quarter.
This quarter, several Western European markets joined the group of resilient market, leading the recovery where sales have fully recovered to pre-COVID levels.
Strong digital and off-premise growth, newsworthy products and doubling down on value offerings have fueled topline growth in these markets, coupled with the continued strength of the chicken category across the QSR segment growth.
Next, at KFC U.S., same-store sales grew 4% during the quarter, while same-store sales increased 13% on a two-year basis.
The continued success of our chicken sandwich and the strength of the group occasion remains significant drivers of our same-store sales growth.
Additionally, as of July, our year-to-date digital sales in the U.S. surpassed our full year 2020 digital sales.
We speak to the results we're seeing from our investments in this critical growth channel.
Now on to the Pizza Hut Division, which accounts for 17% of our operating profit.
Q3 system sales grew 4%, driven by 1% unit growth and 4% same-store sales growth.
For the Division, two-year same-store sales grew 1% during the quarter, which included the impact of 1% of stores being temporarily closed as of the end of Q3 2021.
Pizza Hut International same-store sales grew 6% during the quarter.
On a two-year basis same-store sales declined 4%.
While our Pizza Hut International business continues to be pressured, given our substantial dine-in index, the sustained strength in our off-premise business as reflected by 21% same-store sales growth on a two-year basis bodes well for the future of the brand and continues to fuel franchisee interest in investing in assets focused on serving the off-premise occasions.
Our markets continue to demonstrate what it means to be RED by focusing on strong value propositions and innovative partnerships, including Beyond Meat product offerings in two markets this quarter.
At Pizza Hut U.S., we continued to see positive momentum with 2% same-store sales growth.
On a two-year basis, same-store sales grew 8% and the off-premise channel grew 17%.
Pizza Hut continues to delight customers by bringing Only For Pizza Hut premium innovation with the launch of the Edge Pizza and a return of the successful Detroit-Style Pizza in Q3.
Additionally, we promoted the Dig Dinner Box during back-to-school season for offering easy dinner solution for our Pizza Hut customers.
Moving on to Taco Bell, which accounts for 31% of our operating profit, third quarter system sales grew 8%, driven by 3% unit growth and 5% same-store sales growth.
Two-year same-store sales growth was 8% for the quarter.
Taco Bell continues to focus on long-term growth opportunities by expanding into multiple category entry points, including the relaunch of breakfast in August and the fried chicken category with the Crispy Chicken Sandwich Taco during the quarter.
Meanwhile, Taco Bell International remains focused on their mission to make Tacos cool around the world, while also ensuring the brand is culturally relevant in each market.
In the U.K., we gave away free taco to the country to celebrate England advancing to the finals in the European Championship.
Players on the English team even tweeted on behalf of the brand, resulting in Taco Bell being one of the top trending brands on Twitter during the finals.
And finally, at the Habit Burger Grill, we saw system sales grow 19% during the quarter, driven by 11% same-store sales growth and 7% unit growth.
on a two-year basis, same-store sales grew 7%, which included the impact of about 1% of stores being temporarily closed as of the end of Q3.
We continue to see strong results through our digital channels, even as customers return to our dining room.
During the quarter, we launched the culinary-forward Balsamic Grilled Chicken and Asparagus Salad that highlighted our unmatched char-grilled chicken and seasonal ingredients.
Now I'll discuss our unrivaled culture and talent growth drivers.
A hallmark of Yum!
is our people-first culture.
We have tremendous leaders across our organization that have been developed internally to lead our brands and because of our culture, we're able to attract world-class external talent.
This quarter, we have the opportunity to announce some exciting internal promotions with planned leadership transitions.
First, Tony Lowings, CEO of KFC will be retiring on March 1, 2022.
He has embodied, what it means to be a people-first leader throughout his career and will no doubt leave a lasting legacy on the KFC brand.
Tony's successor will be Sabir Sami, KFCs Global Chief Operations Officer who is an incredibly well respected and experienced leader, who has played a pivotal role in the KFC global business.
Sabir's promotion to CEO of KFC provide us an opportunity to elevate another internal talent with Dyke Shipp stepping in as President of KFC after serving as KFCs Global Chief People and Development Officer.
With their combined experience of over 40 years with Yum!
, both Sabir and Dyke will assume their new roles effective January 1, 2022.
I couldn't be more confident in our ability to continue to unleash the power of this iconic brand with both Sabir and Dyke leading KFC.
Next, we recently announced that David Graves, Pizza Hut U.S. General Manager, will be promoted to President of Pizza Hut U.S. effective January 1, 2022.
Alongside Kevin Hochman, David has helped architect the Pizza Hut U.S. strategy and is the right person to lead the way forward for the brand by continuing to partner with our franchisees.
These internal promotions demonstrate that our deep bench of experienced leaders is a real competitive advantage for us across the restaurant industry.
Lastly, we recruited significant external talent with the appointment of Aaron Powell as Chief Executive Officer of Pizza Hut.
Aaron joined us from Kimberly Clark, where he most recently led their Asia-Pacific business.
We're thrilled to have Aaron join our leadership team with his seasoned CPG executive experience and believe his leadership, alongside Vipul Chawla and David Graves will help fuel the brand growth strategy.
Equally as important as our Recipe for Growth is our Recipe for Good.
I could not be prouder of the progress Yum!
and our brands have made this year in sharpening the focus and execution of our ESG agenda, particularly on climate action and sustainable packaging, alongside our global Unlocking Opportunity Initiative to tackle inequality.
We are advancing our plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across our global system and supply chain by nearly half by 2030 while we work to implement, learn from, and scale pilots for reusable, recyclable and compostable packaging in the front of our restaurants to meet our 2025 public commitment.
Across all of our brands, we're focused on building a resilient business for the future with purpose and sustainability at the core.
Our iconic brands and unmatched scale put us in a class of our own.
We're competitively advantaged, given the size and capabilities of our franchise system and I'm thrilled with our teams as we continue to be nimble and meet the consumer where they are.
Overall, I'm proud of how our business is performing and I'm confident that we're positioned to win in a post-COVID world.
With that, Chris, over to you.
Today, I'll discuss our financial results, our unmatched operating capability and Bold Restaurant Development growth drivers and our solid balance sheet and liquidity position.
I'll start by discussing our financial results.
Our results year-to-date, through Q3, highlighted by 15% system sales growth translating into strong core operating profit growth of 26% demonstrate the resilience and strength of our economic model.
The continued momentum reflected in our results reaffirms our confidence in delivering, on an annual basis, the long-term growth algorithm we reinstated on our last call, specifically 2% to 3% same-store sales growth, plus 4% to 5% net new unit growth, translating to mid-to-high single-digit system sales growth and high-single-digit operating profit growth.
In the third quarter, specifically, Yum!
system sales grew 8%, driven by 5% same-store sales growth or 3% on a two-year basis, which includes the impact of about 1% of stores being temporarily closed as of the end of Q3.
We delivered 4% unit growth year-over-year, which included a record of 760 net new units this quarter.
Core operating profit increased 3% for the quarter, in line with our internal expectations, when accounting for one-time items that impacted comparability.
The largest of these items was the lap of last year's bad debt recoveries, which accounted for a 5 point headwind to core operating profit growth.
EPS, excluding special items, was $1.22, representing a 21% increase compared to ex-special earnings per share of $1.01 in the third quarter last year.
Reflected in our ex-special earnings per share this quarter, is an investment gain on our approximate 5% investment in Devyani International Limited, an entity that operates KFC and Pizza Hut franchise units in India.
Our minority stake in Devyani was acquired in lieu of cash proceeds upon the refranchising of approximately 60 KFCs in India during 2019 and 2020.
During the third quarter, Devyani completed an Initial Public Offering and we began reflecting the change in fair value of our investments in our results during the quarter.
This resulted in $52 million of pre-tax investment gains on our approximate 5% stake, which added $0.16 to EPS, but did not impact our core operating profit.
During Q3, we had bad debt expense of $3 million.
As a reminder, we had large quarterly swings in bad debt last year due to COVID and were lapping $21 million in bad debt recoveries in the third quarter of last year, resulting in a year-over-year headwind of 5 points, or $24 million to core operating profit growth this quarter.
We expect core operating profit growth to be negatively impacted again in Q4 as we lapped bad debt recoveries of $8 million in the fourth quarter last year.
Our general and administrative expenses on an ex-special basis for the quarter were $249 million.
On a full year basis this year, we now estimate consolidated G&A will be approximately $1.05 billion, an increase of about $60 million above our incoming expectations for the year, driven entirely by our above-target incentive compensation based on our strong business performance.
Our commitment to be an efficient growth company that leverages fixed costs with our unique scale benefits is unchanged.
We expect our G&A to system sales ratio to move back to 1.7% next year on a full year basis.
Finally, we note that Taco Bell company store margins have begun to normalize in the back half of this year due to increased staffing in our restaurants as we return to our historical daypart mix, wage investments and recent commodity inflation.
While there will be quarterly variability due to the dynamic environment, we are confident in our ability to consistently deliver Taco Bell company store margins in line with our historical pre-COVID levels for full year 2021 and beyond.
Next, I'll discuss our unmatched operating capabilities.
We continue to invest in our technology strategy to expand both our digital capabilities and restaurant technology solutions.
We're prioritizing, making it easier to operate a restaurant, ultimately driving efficiencies in our stores to enhance franchise unit economics, while also improving the customer experience.
To that end, during the quarter, we closed on the acquisition of Dragontail Systems, a restaurant technology company that enhances both the team member and customer experience.
Dragontail uses innovative technology that streamlines the order management process in the restaurant and optimizes delivery routes for drivers resulting in our customers receiving the freshest possible products.
Thus far, the Dragontail solution has been deployed in 13 markets and in over 1,700 stores across the Pizza Hut system.
Many Pizza Hut restaurants leveraging Dragontail platform have already seen a positive impact on sales, order fulfillment and customer satisfaction scores, including product freshness and delivery times.
I recently participated in virtual store visits in the U.K. and in Latin America where franchisees demonstrated benefits of the Dragontail system and shared their team members' excitement.
Another example of how our technology investments yield enhanced operating performance is Taco Bell's continued execution of its All Access technology initiative.
This connected suite of core restaurant technology solutions is used to optimize operations and create a frictionless customer experience.
These strategic efforts contributed to Taco Bell's seventh consecutive quarter with drive-thru times below four minutes, enabling the brand to serve more customers through the drive-thru, while also delivering a great customer experience.
Moving on to our Bold Restaurant Development growth driver, I'm thrilled to discuss how we delivered another record development quarter with 760 net new units, including meaningful contributions across multiple geographies at our KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell global brands.
While we continue to see strong development from Yum!
China, our brands are also seeing broad-based development across other markets.
The widespread strengths in our store level economics and cash on cash returns improving relative to pre-COVID levels are key drivers contributing to the acceleration and development we're seeing around the world.
Our KFC International markets have seen impressive development as China, Russia, India, Latin America and the Middle East continued to deliver strong unit development during the third quarter.
Additionally, over the past year, Pizza Hut International has driven a significant inflection in their unit growth, going from negative net new units in 2020 to opening nearly 200 net new units during the third quarter.
We expect this momentum to continue; a further testament to the confidence our franchisees have in the future of the brand.
At Taco Bell International, we continue to see strong development as key markets are approaching scale.
Not only are we seeing strong development across our brands, but given the continued strength in digital and off-premise growth, our teams continue to evolve the asset types being developed into more digitally enabled formats.
As an example, we now have 23 Go Mobile locations at Taco Bell U.S. These technology-forward restaurants, which include dual drive-thru's with a dedicated mobile pickup lane, mobile pickup shelves and a faster Bellhop experience, among other things, have been a big hit, and we have more in our development pipeline.
Next, I'll provide an update on our strong balance sheet and liquidity position.
In August, we completed our third whole business securitization issuance at Taco Bell in the past five years, issuing $2.25 billion of new Securitization Notes.
The weighted average yield of the new notes was approximately 2.24% and the proceeds were used to opportunistically repay $1.3 billion of existing higher coupon Taco Bell Securitization Notes and to support our share buyback program.
We still expect our 2021 interest expense to be approximately $500 million, in line with 2020.
We ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $1 billion, excluding restricted cash.
Due to our continued recovery in EBITDA, our consolidated net leverage continues to be temporarily below our target of approximately 5 times.
With respect to our share buyback program, during the quarter, we repurchased 2.6 million shares at an average share price of $127 per share, totaling approximately $330 million.
Year-to-date, we've repurchased $860 million of shares at an average price of $117.
Capital expenditures, net of refranchising proceeds, during the quarter were $49 million.
We now expect net capital expenditures of approximately $175 million for the full year, reflecting roughly $75 million in refranchising proceeds and $250 million of gross capex.
Lastly, our capital priorities remain unchanged; invest in the business, maintain a healthy balance sheet, pay a competitive dividend and return the remaining excess cash to shareholders via share repurchases.
Before wrapping up, I'd like to take a moment to address both labor and cost inflation pressures and how Yum!
is well-positioned to navigate these challenges.
While our franchisees are not immune to these market pressures, we believe the power of our scale and the larger average size of our franchisees relative to those of our QSR peers, enables our system to manage the inflationary environment better than most.
For example, while many small chains and independent restaurants experienced difficulties adapting to these market dynamics, our franchisees continue to invest through this environment, accelerating investments that help widen their strategic advantage.
Additionally, our people-first culture is a true competitive advantage in both attracting and retaining team members.
We're confident in the ability of our brands to respond to the dynamic market conditions and are working closely with our franchisees to assess strategic opportunities to take price as and when needed, while ensuring we continue to offer compelling value to our customers.
While store level margins have moderated, franchisee unit economics generally remain incredibly healthy.
Overall, I'm pleased with our performance this quarter, driven by impressive unit growth and sustained digital sales.
We continue to invest in our digital ecosystem to scale technologies and provide a unique competitive advantage for our franchise operators, while enhancing the customer and team member experience.
Our franchise system is healthy and well-positioned to invest through the near-term pressures, fueling our development engine and future unit growth.
Our unit growth and sustained sales momentum, despite lingering COVID impacts, only make us more confident in our ability to deliver on our long-term growth algorithm.
With that, operator, we are ready to take any questions.

user
compname reports q3 earnings per share $1.22 excluding items.
compname reports third-quarter results; record 760 net-new units and same-store sales growth of 5%.
driving system sales growth of 8%.
sustained digital system sales of over $5 billion.
q3 earnings per share $1.22 excluding items.
qtrly worldwide system sales excluding foreign currency translation grew 8%.
q3 results, led by record-breaking unit development and sustained momentum in digital sales.
qtrly worldwide system sales excluding foreign currency translation grew 8%, with kfc at 11%, taco bell at 8% and pizza hut at 4%.

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