With 375 stores across the country, QSR major McDonald’s is now planning to transform its India strategy for charting the number two slot in the coming years. To take on the leading players in the segment: Starbucks, Cafe Coffee Day and Costa Coffee, the company also eyes on becoming a beverage platform from being just a quick service restaurant through its McCafe branded cafes, which are separate restaurants housed inside existing McDonald’s joints.
Amit Jatia, Vice-Chairman of Westlife Development, was reportedly quoted as saying, “We want to become the second largest player after Cafe Coffee Day in the next two to three years. In the US, McDonald’s beverage accounts for big business and high yielding revenue. In India, we have more than 300 million customers visiting our restaurants. To bring more people in, we need to offer a wider range.”
The subsidiary of Westlife Development, Hardcastle Restaurants holds the development licence for McDonald’s Corp in southern and western parts of the country.
While McDonald’s is shutting some outlets in the US, the company is looking at countries such as India and China for growth. In the recent past, international entrants such as Wendy’s, Johnny Rocket, Carl’s Junior and Burger King, paving their paths into the Indian market, the competition has been risen steeply and has become tougher to maintaining the brand value. Now McDonald’s is looking to invest Rs 750 crore in the domestic market to expand its operations.
“Around 80 per cent of that will go into opening new restaurants and the rest will be used to renovating the existing ones,” Jatia was quoted as saying.
The company will also open 175-250 new restaurants in the next three to five years.
Must Read
