McDonald’s Plans for Growth with a Focus on Development and Technology
Let’s talk about what’s cooking at McDonald’s these days. Back in December, the famous fast-food chain shared some big news at their Investor Day. They’ve added a new focus area called “Development” to their strategy, which already includes delivery, drive-thru, and digital services.
For a chain as big as McDonald’s with around 40,000 spots all over the world, you might be surprised to hear they haven’t opened many new locations in the U.S. for a while. Last year, they only added six new stores in the country!
But they’ve been quietly getting ready to grow, especially since the pandemic started. There may be as many as 250 new McDonald’s in the works. Many of these are likely to be in the South and Southeast of the U.S., following where people are moving.
By 2027, McDonald’s plans to have about 50,000 locations. That means adding a lot more restaurants—900 in the U.S., 1,900 in places like France, Australia, and Canada, and a big bunch in China.
Ian Borden, the CFO, said that even though the U.S. population has grown by 11% in the last decade, McDonald’s growth was just about 4%. They want to do better than that and really be part of local communities.
Now, McDonald’s didn’t just wait around all these years. They spent $9 billion to make their restaurants more modern. Remember in 2018 when they said they would update most U.S. restaurants by 2020? That was before we knew how tough things would get with things like dining rooms closing and the need for more digital ways to buy food.
The updates they made include new kiosks, changes for table service, digital menu boards, special parking spots for picking up mobile orders, and bigger counters. These modern touches really helped bring in more sales.
Today, almost all McDonald’s in the U.S. are modernized. Borden said that was really smart because these days it would be way harder to make those changes, with things like high-interest rates making it tough for businesses.
Talking about the digital stuff, Borden mentioned how McDonald’s wasn’t too happy with its digital growth back in 2020. So they worked hard on it. Now, they have 150 million people signed up for their loyalty program across their top 50 markets. That’s a big deal!
Did you know that McDonald’s makes about $20 billion just from selling to loyalty members? And in the U.S., over 34 million people use the loyalty program.
They’re also getting all techie in the restaurants. McDonald’s is partnering with Google Cloud to use some smart tech that makes running a restaurant smoother and helps make the food hotter and fresher.
But it’s not just about being modern and digital. McDonald’s knows they need to keep prices friendly, especially for folks who don’t have a lot of money to spend. There’s some tough competition out there with grocery store prices going down while restaurant prices go up.
McDonald’s wants to make sure you know about their good deals. Most of their U.S. locations offer meal bundles for breakfast or other times of the day for less than $4.
The food itself is super important too. McDonald’s is focusing on their big sellers—good ol’ beef, chicken, and coffee. They’re cooking up some bigger burgers because that’s what people have been asking for. And they’re working on making their chicken options and coffee even better.
That’s the scoop on McDonald’s! They’re planning to grow and keep bringing us the food we love while making the whole experience even better for us. Stay tuned for all the yummy developments! 🍔🍟 ☕
Image via McDonald’s