Taco Bell Reports Increase in Profit of 20% for Year : Earnings: Fast-food chain attributes gain to giving the customers what they want. Revenue for period rose 21%.

IRVINE —  Taco Bell reported Tuesday that its operating profit rose 20% last year on a 21% increase in revenue.

Annual operating earnings totaled $217.2 million, up from $181 million for 1991. Revenue for the restaurant chain, a subsidiary of soft-drink giant Pepsico Inc., was $2.5 billion, up from $2.1 billion.

For the fourth quarter, Taco Bell reported that profit rose by 33% to $75.6 million on revenue that grew by 24% to $812.6 million.

John E. Martin, Taco Bell’s president and chief executive, linked the gains to “an unrelenting focus on value” that helped the company to overcome the sluggish economy and growing competition in the fast-food industry.

Taco Bell “has been listening to our customers,” Martin said. “We committed ourselves to delivering value to the customer. . . . We decided to deliver what they asked for, not what we thought they wanted.”

That back-to-the-basics theme is being repeated at many major restaurant chains’ headquarters. Anaheim-based Carl Karcher Enterprises, parent of Carl’s Jr. hamburger restaurants, said last week that ongoing corporate staff layoffs are driven by a renewed focus on fundamental restaurant operations.

Earnings for Taco Bell, which is based in Irvine, were in line with overall gains reported by Pepsico Inc.’s restaurant group, which includes Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Each of the chains reported annual profit increases of at least 20%.

While new Taco Bell restaurants accounted for a portion of the chain’s profit and revenue growth, same-store sales also rose, Martin said, by 9% for the last quarter of 1992 and by 6% for the full year.

“Our business seems to move despite what the external environment creates for us,” he said. “Our business in California, which is supposedly far worse (than elsewhere), is every bit as vibrant as (in) the rest of the country.”