Fast food giant McDonald’s recorded a revenue of approximately 10.41 billion U.S. dollars in the United States alone in 2024. Comparatively, international operated markets accounted for the highest amount of revenue, with 12.46 billion U.S. dollars. Due to the company's widespread success, McDonald's has become one of the most well-known fast food restaurants in the United States. The McDonald's brandMcDonald’s is arguably one of the most recognizable brands worldwide, let alone within the quick service market. In 2023, the company had over 41 thousand restaurants all over the globe. The majority of these were based in the United States. However, the number of McDonald's restaurants worldwide is expanding in other regions as well. In 2024, there were 13,557 McDonald's restaurants located in the United States. Meanwhile, there were 10,512 restaurants located in international operated markets. Why did McDonald's revenue decrease? The quick service restaurant market has become increasingly competitive in recent years and while McDonald’s remains profitable, revenue has generally declined over the past decade. The McDonald’s business model – easily affordable food, clean environment, accessible by all - was something that revolutionized food service. However, in recent years, this has been replicated by many other restaurants. This could be one of the many reasons there has been an overall decrease in revenue for the company throughout the past decade. McDonald's revenue did see an increase, however, from 2023 to 2024.

McDonald's generated a total revenue of 25.92 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. In that year, when looking at McDonald’s revenue by region, the country that generated the highest portion of revenue was the United States - accounting for 10.41 billion U.S. dollars. However, internationally operated markets including, but not exclusive to, Australia, France, Canada, and the UK, contributed the largest sum to the McDonald's total revenue in 2024. How did McDonald’s start? McDonald’s was originally founded in 1940 in San Bernardino, California, United States by Richard, and Maurice McDonald. It was eventually turned into a franchise operation and was bought from the McDonald’s brothers in 1955 by businessman Ray Kroc. In 2024, there were over 22 thousand conventionally franchised McDonald's restaurants worldwide which made up the majority of its 43,477 establishments across the globe. The burger behemoth earned most of its revenue from McDonald’s franchised restaurants and received 15.72 billion U.S. dollars through this mode of operation in 2024. Is McDonald’s the largest quick service chain? McDonald’s had the highest brand value of any quick service restaurant company by a large margin in 2024. Not only that, but it also ranked in the top 100 biggest companies in the world in 2024. The biggest player in the market that year was Microsoft, with a total market capitalization amounting to over 3.1 trillion U.S. dollars.

Introduction

McDonald’s Statistics: McDonald's, a global leader in the fast food industry, has been a cornerstone in culinary history since its inception in 1940 in San Bernardino, California. As of 2023, the brand boasts over 41,800 locations worldwide, with its largest market in the United States, where approximately 13,400 restaurants operate.

In Europe, France and the United Kingdom lead with around 1,600 and 1,400 McDonald's respectively, while China dominates the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions in the number of McDonald's locations. Renowned for its Big Mac, which has been used since 1986 in the Economist's Big Mac Index to measure economic purchasing power, McDonald's continues to thrive in a dynamic consumer market. By 2024, McDonald's brand value reached USD 38 billion, securing its position as the second most valuable restaurant brand globally, outpacing competitors like Burger King, KFC, and Subway.

This enduring success is attributed to the company's adaptation to digital trends and consumer preferences, integrating delivery services with platforms like UberEats, DoorDash, and GrubHub. This strategy, part of McDonald's "4Ds" approach—digitalization, delivery, drive-thru, and development—ensures its prominence in the fast food industry continues.

In fiscal year 2024, McDonald's Corporation's revenue by geographical region are as follows: International Developmental Licensed Markets and Corporate: $2.66 B, International Operated Markets: $12.63 B, UNITED STATES: $10.63 B.

McDonald’s, the renowned global quick service restaurant chain, has maintained annual growth in its restaurant count for almost two decades, even during the years of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In 2024, the company operated and franchised 43,477 restaurants globally, marking a rise from the previous year’s count of 41,822 establishments. What country has the most McDonald's restaurants? McDonald’s has asserted its global dominance through the widespread expansion of its chains across the world. In 2023, France was the European region with the highest number of McDonald's restaurants, closely followed by Germany. Meanwhile, Brazil took first spot in the Latin American and the Caribbean region, and China emerged as the country with the most McDonald's restaurants in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions. That being said, the country with the most McDonald's restaurants in the world was, unsurprisingly, its home nation of the United States. Is McDonald’s the leading quick service restaurant chain globally? In 2023, coffee shop chain Starbucks claimed ranked second on the Forbes "Global 2000" list of the leading global food and beverage companies by sales. While it did not place first or second in the ranking, the McDonald’s Corporation placed third, also generating significant sales worldwide. However, McDonald’s was named the most valuable quick service restaurant brand of 2024, with an estimated brand value of 221.9 billion U.S. dollars worldwide.

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As of January 2025, New South Wales was home to the highest number of McDonald's locations in Australia, with over 330 stores. In comparison, there were only 16 McDonald's restaurants in Tasmania that same year. In total, almost 1,050 McDonald's stores were in operation nationwide in 2025. Australia: one of McDonald’s leading international markets Famous for its Big Mac, American quick service restaurant (QSR) chain McDonald’s is by far the most valuable fast food brand worldwide, with an estimated brand value of almost 222 billion U.S. dollars. The Australian McDonald’s franchise is one of the largest contributors to McDonald’s total revenue among the company’s internationally operated markets. In 2023, McDonald’s Australia Holdings Pty Ltd generated an annual revenue of around 831 million U.S. dollars. Battle of the burger chains McDonald’s and Hungry Jack’s are the most prevalent burger franchises in Australia, with McDonald’s recording the highest brand score index value across Australia’s QSRs in 2024. In terms of locations, McDonald’s boasted the highest number of locations of all burger franchises across Australia in 2025 and had more than double the number of stores compared to Hungry Jack’s. Nonetheless, by a small margin, Australian consumers voted Hungry Jack’s as being better value for money than McDonald’s. Furthermore, the Big Jack was rated higher across all categories than the Big Mac regarding taste, quality of ingredients, and value for money. Popular Australian burger chain Grill’d also keeps its foot in the door of Australia’s burger market due to its extensive variety of burger options and highly-rated dine-in experience. With Wendy’s and Mr. Charlie’s entering Australia’s fast food market, the battle of the country’s burger chains may become even more intense.

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McDonald’s revenue in Germany amounted to an estimated 4.2 billion euros in 2022. McDonald’s is one of the most popular fast food restaurants in the world, and Germany is no exception.

McDonald’s in Germany

Despite McDonald’s international long-term success and popularity, at the same time the brand has had to battle various challenges in recent decades: changing attitudes towards fast food and meat consumption, growing awareness of fair trade and organic products, attention to healthy lifestyles and general growing competition in the restaurant industry, to name just a few examples. In Germany, surveys on the population’s frequency of eating at McDonald’s showed that the largest share of respondents actually never ate there. Sometimes McDonald’s customers also went to Burger King. In terms of age, most McDonald’s visitors were aged 20 to 29 years.

Fast food is less healthy today

Based on recent studies, fast food has become less healthy since the 1980s, with both portion sizes and calorie counts growing. McDonald’s was among the fast food chains studied. It still remains the most visited fast food restaurant in Germany.

When looking at the leading food and drink services chains by sales in 2023, as ranked by Forbes in its "Global 2000" list of the largest companies worldwide, Compass Group came out on top. The contract food service company had sales of over 40 billion U.S. dollars that year. Meanwhile, the Starbucks Corporation ranked second with total sales amounting to 36.5 billion U.S. dollars What are the leading food service brands worldwide? Starbucks also ranked as the second most valuable quick service restaurant worldwide in 2023. Taking the top spot in that ranking was McDonald’s, with a brand value of over 191 billion U.S. dollars. McDonald’s Golden Arches can be seen all over the world, and, in 2023, the company's global revenue reached 25.49 billion U.S. dollars. How many Starbucks establishments are there worldwide? There were around 38 thousand Starbucks stores worldwide in 2023, a figure that has seen almost consistent growth over the past 20 years. The largest share of Starbucks’ establishments were located in its home nation of the United States. Despite this, the coffee chain has a tremendous international presence, with the company having accounted for more Starbucks stores abroad than in its home country in 2023.

By using intelligent event data, restaurants can better understand how high-impact events have impacted their businesses historically and accurately predict how these events will drive demand for their products and services in the future. This information powers the ability to adjust their operations to prepare for higher levels of demand and capitalize on the revenue opportunities these events bring.

Data also includes Predicted Event Spend, a dollar figure that reflects the predicted amount of retail, accommodation, and transportation spending in a specific area as a result of a major event. At the core of this figure sits our market leading global event coverage, predicted event attendance, local accommodation demand, aviation demand, third party data and more to give you greater geographical context of the scale of the economic impact an event will have.

Location: McDonald's, Times Square, New York City Visibility Window: 6-Months Historical Categories: community, concerts, conferences, expos, festivals, performing arts, sports, academic, daylight savings, observances, politics, public holidays, school holidays, airport delays, disasters, health warnings, severe weather, terror

Fields Included: - Title - Category - Labels - Description - Start date and time - End date and time - Predicted end time - Timezone - Country - Lat / Lon - Venue Name - Venue Address - Rank (PHQ Rank, Local Rank) - PHQ Attendance - Event status - Place Hierarchy - Created/updated timestamps - Predicted event spend total - Predicted event spend accommodation - Predicted event spend hospitality - Predicted event spend transportation

Polygon information: PredictHQ's polygons enable you to see the full area impacted by an event represented as a shape, because many types of events don't occur neatly at a point on a map. That means you will get a much more accurate picture of impact. Data samples including polygons are available upon request.

Data quality: PredictHQ's data quality is one of its key strengths: 1) We have developed a set of Quality Standards for Processing Demand Causal Factors (QSPD), which are used to define the criteria for high-quality event data. By following these standards, PredictHQ ensures that their data meets the highest levels of quality. 2) We use more than 450 data sources to collect event data, including public records, social media, and ticketing websites. 3) We have built thousands of machine learning models that standardize, verify, enrich, and rank every single event. 4) On average we process 28 million events and 422,000 entities every day 5) We track the quality of our data over time and make improvements as needed.

About PredictHQ: PredictHQ is the world’s first and only company that provides the missing context for the biggest external factor that impacts businesses demand – events. PredictHQ’s intelligent data of verified global events enables businesses to forecast shifts in demand from events to be able to adjust their inventory, make changes to labor, dynamically price and operate more efficiently. Think conferences, sports games, college graduations, floods, and more. PredictHQ brings all events into one place, combines it with world-first tools and intelligence to allow organizations to better predict and respond to changing customer demand created by events in an easy, reliable, and scalable way. We meet customers exactly where they are, ensuring they can access our data the way that suits them best.

Learn more about PredictHQ's real-world event data by visiting our Developer and Data Science Documentation: https://docs.predicthq.com/

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Explore AG McDonald Consulting through data • Key facts: country, employees, revenues, company type, sector, industry, foundation year, ESG score • Real-time news, visualizations and datasets

In 2024, McDonald's Brasil generated roughly *** billion Brazilian reals in net revenue, ranking as the top restaurant company in the South American country. Meanwhile, the net revenue of *** amounted to around *** billion Brazilian reals, following in the second place on the list.

In 2022, Lotteria recorded a revenue of around two trillion Vietnamese dong in Vietnam, making it the fast-food chain with the highest revenue in the country that year. Lotteria is among the earliest fast-food chains to enter the Vietnamese market.

In 2023, McDonald’s had 605 restaurants in Spain, Andorra, and Gibraltar. The American burger-specialized chain has been working on its expansion in Spain over the last years, increasing by nearly 200 its number of restaurants since 2010.

McDonald’s in Spain and the world

The American burger chain was the preferred fast food brand of Spaniards in 2021, being the favorite of roughly 27 percent of respondents. The runner up was a restaurant of the same country and type of food – Burger King – chosen by about 24 percent of interviewees. The revenue of the McDonald’s Corporation worldwide in 2021 was over 23 billion U.S. dollars, a growth of more than 20 percent over the previous year. The golden arches saw their peak in 2013, however, and the general trend since then was negative.

The fast food industry in Spain

The revenue of quick-service restaurants in Spain in 2021 was 3.85 billion euros. While this represented a growth of almost 30 percent compared to the previous year, it is still smaller than the peak hit in 2019. This industry had a growing trend until 2020 when the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit. However, while the share of Spanish people who visited fast-food restaurants decreased in 2020, it was still higher than what was observed in 2018. The declining trend continued into 2021, the year that had the lowest share since 2010, at 23.1 percent.

Globally-known quick service restaurant (QSR) chain McDonald’s spent approximately 445 million U.S. dollars on advertising worldwide in 2024, down from 388.9 million the previous year. Advertising costs are divided into two categories: contributions to advertising cooperatives and production costs for radio and TV advertising. Contributions to advertising cooperatives accounted for 355 million U.S. dollars and production costs for 90 million in 2024.

McDonald's invested 1.9 billion U.S. dollars in advertising in the United States in 2022. Since 2014, the omni-present fast food restaurant chain has been consistently increasing their promotional spending in the country.

McDonald’s: a largest ad player in the U.S. market
In 2022, McDonald’s Corporation was one of the leading advertisers among popular fast food and quick serve restaurants in the United States. The company’s measured media spend on its chains far surpassed the investments of Wendy's, Burger King, and Taco Bell. Famous for its compelling outdoor ads, McDonald's also ranked among the largest out-of-home advertisers in the U.S. that year, with an investment of over 60 million dollars.

Most valuable fast-food brand worldwide
Founded in California, in 1940, by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald, McDonald's became a behemoth in the fast food market, generating globally revenues of 23 billion dollars in 2022. That year, the company secured the spot of most valuable fast food brand in the world, with an estimated brand value of about 196.5 billion dollars.

In 2017, McDonald's was the leading foodservice company in South Korea, with a market share of around 1.2 percent based on value sales. In 2018, the overall foodservice sales value in South Korea amounted to around 87.8 billion U.S. dollars. A survey in April 2019 found that more than 36 percent of respondents stated that they were eating out once every two to three days.

Independent vs Chain restaurants

South Korea’s foodservice sector has a large share of smaller, often family owned businesses. While chain franchise restaurants are expected to grow faster than independent restaurants, the sales value of independent restaurants accounted for around two thirds of the total restaurant sales value in 2018. Nevertheless, customers tend to spend more per transaction at chain restaurants than at independent restaurants.

McDonald’s in South Korea

American chain franchise McDonald’s opened their first shop in South Korea in 1988, opening their 100th store only seven years later. Nowadays, more than 400 stores are operating throughout the country. Their delivery service, McDelivery, launched in 2007. The McDelivery app is one of the most downloaded and used food delivery apps in South Korea. One of McDonald’s biggest fast-food focused competitors is South Korean-based franchise Lotteria. The chain first started in Japan in 1972 and started operating in South Korea in 1979. While McDonald’s is dominant on the global market, Lotteria has been able to grow in Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Cambodia.

In 2022, Jollibee generated a profit after tax of around 68 billion Vietnamese dong (VND) in Vietnam, making it the leading fast-food chain with the highest profit after tax in the country. That year, Lotteria and McDonald's reported losses of approximately 14 and 100 billion VND, respectively.

Global fast food giant Burger King generated approximately 1.9 billion U.S. dollars in revenue during the 2022 financial year. This figure reflects an increase over the previous year's total of 1.81 billion. The company's revenue peaked in 2009.

Burger King's whooping success

Founded in 1954, Burger King is a U.S.-based quick service burger restaurant chain that is also known by the abbreviation ‘BK’. Since the 1950’s Burger King evolved into an international brand with more than 19 thousand Burger King restaurants worldwide. Burger King also affirmed its position as one of the most valuable QSR chain worldwide in terms of brand value. It also ranked fifth in terms of the leading QSR chains with the most number of units in the United States.

COVID-19's impact on the fast food industry

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic caused unprecedented challenges in the QSR industry across the globe. Efforts to contain the spread of the virus caused restaurant chains to restrict its operations to take-out orders or delivery only, as indoor dining was not possible due to social distancing orders. In the United States, restaurant traffic to the fast food restaurants experienced a nearly 20 percent decline in restaurant traffic during this period.