That’s one of the top highlights from the company’s latest quarterly report issued on Tuesday. Another shows Yum China spent a record $745 million on share buybacks and dividends, often collectively referred to as “returning money to shareholders,” in the first three months of the year. It did that by buying back more of its shares in a single quarter than in any year in its 8-year history as a publicly traded company. It also boosted its quarterly dividend to a new high.

It repaid investors as it continued with its breakneck expansion in a market that still has plenty of room to grow despite more cautious consumer spending. Among other things, it ramped up its drive into China’s smaller cities by rolling out new smaller store formats that can be opened for as little as one-third of its current average cost. It also ramped up its push into franchising, leveraging its strong know-how and operational capability and taking advantage of experienced third-party partners to expand more quickly, especially in smaller markets and harder-to-reach channels like hospitals, universities or even highway service stations.

The company also threw down the gauntlet to coffee shop operators like Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) and local leader Luckin (OTC:LKNCY), with KFC rolling out separate storefronts for KCOFFEE, its coffee segment, side-by-side with existing KFC stores, allowing for a shared kitchen and other resources that substantially reduce store investment cost while achieving greater efficiency.

The report showed generally positive business trends, including solid revenue growth on a constant-currency basis. The stock is relatively undervalued compared to global peers like Starbucks, McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) and former parent Yum Brands (NYSE:YUM), which is probably why the company has been buying back shares so aggressively.

Management pointed out that KFC China recently rolled out a “small town mini-model” with simplified menus and optimized equipment that can cost as little as 500,000 yuan ($69,000) for each new store opening – only costing one third versus the current average of 1.2 million yuan to 1.5 million yuan. It added that Pizza Hut has also developed its own compact dine-in restaurant format. KFC accounted for about 70% of Yum China’s stores at the end of the first quarter, while Pizza Hut made up 23%, with the rest coming from its smaller chains like Little Sheep and Huang Ji Huang.

On the coffee front, the company jumped into China’s recent craze for coffee with the launch of a new storefront model for its KCOFFEE segment. The brand has been part of KFC’s offerings since 2015 but is now being set up as a separate storefront attached to KFC stores. While the new KCOFFEE stores have their own separate dining spaces and menus, they run alongside existing KFC restaurants to take advantage of their kitchens and other resources. It has already opened 100 such stores in less than a year, and, with the number of KCOFFEE cups sold recording a 30% year-on-year increase in the first quarter, the company intends to “roll this model out aggressively.”

We’ll close with some of the company’s “big picture” financials, headlined by a 7% year-on-year revenue increase on a constant-currency basis to $2.96 billion, with much of the gain coming from new store openings. The bottom line was the company posted core operating profit of $396 million, up 1% year-on-year. Its net income was roughly flat at $287 million, though its earnings per share still rose 10% on a constant-currency basis due to its heavy share repurchases over the last year.