THE McDONALD'S GROWTH MACHINE.
When Ray Kroc took over the embryonic McDonald's it took the company only years to reach the billion dollar milestone. It gave him great satisfaction to think that IBM had needed 40 years to do this. He had laid the foundation for great growth; by 1972 number of outlets had climbed to 2,272 and sales were accelerating beyond $1 billion. In its 1995 Annual Report, McDonald's management was justifiably proud. ales and profits had continued the long trend upward, and even seemed to be accelerating.Far from reaching a saturation point, the firm was opening more restaurants than ever, some 2,400 around the world in 1995, up from 1,800 the year before. "We plan to add between 2,500 and 3,200 restaurants in both 1996 and 1997 with about two thirds outside the United States. In other words, we opened more than six restaurants per day in 1995 over the next two years, we plan to open eight day." And, "Our growth opportunities remain significant: on any given day, 99 percent of the world's population does not eat at McDonald's yet. Company management extolled the power of the McDonald's brand overseas, and how on opening days lines were sometimes"miles" long. "Often our challenge is to keep up with demand. In China, for example, there are only 62 McDonald's By the end of 1995, the company had 7,012 to serve a population of l.2 billion outlets in 89 countries of the world, with Japan alone having 1,482.