7. Financial Data and Projections 7.1. Historical sales revenues Chick-fil-A, Inc. filled its audit financial report for the year 2018 within its franchise disclosure Document (FDD) on 31st December 2018 showing a Total Revenue of $3.0 billion. The report showed a solid increase in revenue across all categories including the rental income, operational service fees and additional operating service fee. The revenue increased with a 13.7% from the 2017 revenue record of $ 2.6 billion to the $3.0 billion. By the end of the financial year 2018, Chick-fil-A, Inc. had 1,989 franchises; thereby having additional 107 restaurants compared to the 1,882 franchised restaurants owned in 2017. On the same note, all the restaurants recorded total sales $10 billion in 2018 while the previous year (2017) had recorded $8.6 showing an increase of a 16.3% in sales. Interestingly, the company has now recorded an increase in sales for 51 consecutive years and there's more projection of sales growth in the coming year. For the 1, 539 franchised restaurants that are not found with malls, the median annual sales were $5,657,831 and the average annual sales volume was $5,724,126 for the year ended 2018. Elsewhere, the average annual sales for the 234 restaurants found within malls were $5,724,126 while the median annual sales recorded was $5,657,831. By the end of the year 2018, Chick-fil-A, Inc. owned 363 licensed locations operations compared to the 343 licensed locations in 2017. The company even project to increase the number the number of franchised outlets by 21 units in Texas and 21 units in California; the idea is to have a total addition of 125 new franchised outlets by the end of 2019. Compared to the comprehensive earning of $426.2 million in 2017, the year 2018 recorded compressive earning of $450.9 million showing an increase of 5.7%. Similarly, the operating activities provided an increase of 11.7% t the Net cash of $910.4 billion in 2018 from the 2017 record of $814.7 billion. The company recorded a total advertisement expense of $98.7million in 2017 and $99.6 million in 2018. For the qualified defined benefit pension obligation Chick-fil-A paid $181.5 million in 2018, including a $150 million accelerated funding payment**. Moreover, Chick-fil-A acquired equipments and properties worth $716.2 million and $804 million in 2017and 2018 consecutively. Similarly, the company signed into a total of $800 million credit agreement. It is important to note that Chick-fil-A receives a 15% of the individual franchised restaurants total sales as an operational service fees, and an additional 50% of the net profit of each franchised restaurants as additional operating service fee. The company expects to increase its franchised units by 125 additional units in 2019.
