US-based Dunkin’ Brands Group, which operates the Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins brands, is planning to open up to 100 new franchise outlets in the Middle East by 2018, the firm’s chairman told Arabian Business.
“We have been in the Middle East since 1979. It is one of our fastest growing regions. In terms of expansion, we expect to open between 75 and 100 new restaurants between the two brands in the next two to five years,” Nigel Travis, chairman and CEO of the company, told Arabian Business in an interview.
The firm currently operates 296 Dunkin’ Donut outlets in the region, operating in Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are its biggest markets with 137 and 73 outlets respectively. It is currently not in Bahrain, Egypt or Yemen.
Baskin-Robbins is the world’s largest chain of ice cream specialty shops, serving more than 300 million customers each year.
It opened its 650th store in the Middle East this week and operates in Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Yemen. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are its biggest markets with 318 and 149 outlets respectively.
“We have a lot of interest in the Middle East… We will be going into a new country soon this year,” Travis said.
One of the company’s main franchise partners in the region is the Dubai-based Galadari Brothers and earlier this year it was announced the two had signed a joint venture to open up to open approximately 200 additional Baskin-Robbins shops in Australia over the next ten years, more than tripling the brand’s presence in the country.
According to the company’s 2012 annual report, Dunkin’ Donuts had 3,173 restaurants in 31 countries outside the US and its international franchisee-reported sales for the year amounted to $663m.
Baskin-Robbins had 4,517 restaurants in 45 countries outside the US and amounted to approximately $1.4bn of international franchisee-reported sales for the same period.
While it did not give an exact breakdown of geographical sales, its 2012 report said Asia and the Middle East generated franchisee-reported sales of $2bn last year, which represented 23 percent of the company’s global sales.
“I would tell you that internationally, on a per store basis, [the Middle East] has higher average weekly sales than the US,” Travis added.
While Dunkin’ Brands Group operates a franchise model around the world, the Middle East did, up until January this year, a direct ownership link through Carlyle Group, the US private-equity firm in which Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Company owns a 7.5 percent stake.
Washington-based Carlyle bought a stake in Dunkin’ Brands Group in 2006 and benefitted from the company’s successful initial public offering (IPO) in July 2011.
Along with fellow private equity investors Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners, it exited the company in January 2013, with the three firms earning a reported $2.425bn from their investment.
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