Is McDonald's losing it?

by chee Leng (on coffee makers)
(Singapore)

It was the darling of wall streets during for the last 20 over years, people loves their food and they expand to all corners of the world.

Many people thought that they are the largest F&B chain in the world until beginning of this year, when it was announced that Subway has the most number of outlets in the world.

And we thought, second place is not that bad for McDonald's. But, what if they are not even 2nd but 4th?

In UK, McDonald's outlets is lesser than a coffee chain known as Costa coffee. Many people reading this article might not have even heard of this brand, but they are big in UK with 1295.

That is 95 more outlets more than McDonald's. And Subway in the second place, has 1500, about 300 outlets more than McDonald.

So, if other smaller outlets are expanding and McDonald's is slowing down, is there a problem with its management?

My $0.02.

The structure of the outlet is perhaps an unfair comparison. Subway and Costa requires a smaller set-up and a leaner crew.

A McDonald is probably equivalent to 3 costa or subway. And if you do the maths, then McDonald is so much bigger.

Then, the next question is by having lesser outlets, it is better or worse for McDonald's?

Well, they are still racking in the profit, in fact they are more profit than last year, because of coffee.

And in a coffee survey, consumers are more loyal to their coffee than other established brands.

With all these positive factors, I do not think McDonald's is having an issue, but rather, it is changing its direction.

The direction seems to be in coffee, after tasting the goodness of coffee, it's high profit and popularity, there is no doubt we can see more McCafe and more of McDonald's coffee...