MCDONALD’S : THE GLOBAL FAST - FOOD POWERHOUSE
McDonald’s was by far the word’s biggest marketer of fast food. In 2009, it operated almost 32,000 restaurants and served 46 million customers each day in 118 countries. In the financial year 2008, the company attained US$23.5 billion in total sales and US$6.44 billion in operating profits. It also had US$28.6 billion lion assets and US$2.1 billion in annual capital expenditure (see Exhibit 2 for a geographic analysis of McDonald’s financial results). It was also routinely cited by business press as a savvy marketer. In September 2008, although the global economic crisis had reduced the brand values of many companies, McDonald’s brand value had increased by 9 percent to $23,968 billion.
McDonald’s had a long history in Asia. Entry into the Japanese market in 1971 was followed by entry into other newly industrializing economies (such as Singapore and Hong Kong others) in Asia, but it did not enter China India until 1990 and 1996 respectively (see Exhibit 3 for McDonald’s startup dates in East Asian and South Asian countries).
McDonald’s late entry into India was due to several factors, such as the fact that a significant percentage of India’s population was vegetarian, the limited purchasing power of the population, and the closed nature of the economy.