McDonald's sales down for 12 straight months in US, global down too

Last week McDonald’s revealed that worldwide sales dropped by 3.3% on last year in a set of results that went beyond Wall Street’s worst nightmares and were swiftly characterised as atrocious.

Problems are piling up almost everywhere. In China, sales plunged by 23% after a food scare when local media showed workers apparently caught on camera at a local supplier, Shanghai Husi Food, claiming to use out-of-date beef and chicken in products destined for McDonald’s and KFC.

In Europe, sales are down by 4%, mostly because of turmoil in Ukraine and the sour anti-western mood in Russia that has seen US companies caught in the political crossfire. Around 200 of McDonald’s 450 restaurants in Russia are being investigated by health inspectors in apparently politically motivated food-safety checks. Ten have been closed.

But it is in the US, where McDonald’s has around 40% of its restaurants, where the crisis runs deepest. Almost 60 years since Ray Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, consumers are losing their appetite for a Big Mac and fries.

McDonald’s has chalked up 12 straight months of declining sales in its massive home market, with sales down 4.1% in the latest quarter. Younger diners are deserting the restaurant in droves to eat out at rivals such as Chipotle Mexican Grill – which, just the day before McDonald’s revealed its horrible sales figures, announced 20% growth in revenues. The number of 19-to-21-year-olds visiting McDonald’s once a month has fallen by 13% since 2011, according to food analysts Technomic, while the number of 22-to-37-year-olds visiting has not grown.