McDonald’s is seemingly everywhere. That’s apparently not enough.
The burger chain plans to have 50,000 locations globally by 2027, it said in a release Wednesday, ahead of an investor event taking place the same day. As of September 30, there were roughly 41,000 McDonald’s establishments in all.
The increase would be “the fastest period of growth in company history,” McDonald’s said in a statement.
It may seem like the global market is already saturated with fast food restaurants. But McDonald’s doesn’t see it that way: As humanity changes, the company should too — and add more restaurants, so it can maximize sales in all areas.
“Our footprint reflects what the population looks like probably 20 or 30 years ago,” McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said of the company’s domestic footprint during an analyst call in July. “There’s a number of places around the US where we are significantly underdeveloped relative to where the population exists today. That opens up for us a whole bunch of development opportunities for us to go after,” he said.
Along with geographical changes, the company is also considering how the very idea of what a McDonald’s is should change as well.
Kempczinski added at the time that the company can now “[think] about small format,” because “of the growth that’s happened with the digital and delivery, where you don’t necessarily need the big dining rooms that you needed in our traditional restaurants.”
Over the summer, McDonald’s said it was testing out a new restaurant concept called “CosMc’s,” named after a little-known McDonald’s character.
“CosMc’s is a small format concept with all the DNA of McDonald’s but its own unique personality,” CEO Chris Kempczinski said during the July call. The company may offer more of an insight into its plans for CosMc’s during the investor event.
In addition to the new locations, McDonald’s wants to significantly expand its loyalty program, taking it from 150 million to 250 million 90-day active users by 2027.
Loyalty programs let companies learn more about their customers’ preferences, and allow them to offer specific deals that may help prevent them from going to competitors.
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