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McDonald’s is one of the largest global fast-food companies with 43,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries. The chain was founded in 1940 by Maurice and Richard McDonald as a drive-thru concept before the siblings reenvisioned the restaurant as a low-cost food option later that decade. In 1954 Ray Kroc discovered the business and in 1955 launched McDonald’s System Inc., later known as the McDonald’s Corp., before buying the business in 1961. McDonald’s launched beverage-focused concept CosMc’s in December 2023, but announced in May 2025 it would close its five remaining locations.

Q2 2026

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Q4 2025

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Q4 2024

McDonald's (MCD): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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McDonald's

mcdonald's

Hello, and welcome to McDonald's Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Investor Conference Call. At the request of McDonald's Corporation, this conference is being recorded. Following today's presentation, there will be a question and answer session for investors. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Scott Meter, Interim Treasurer for McDonald's Corporation.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With me on the call today are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chris Kamchinski and Chief Financial Officer, Ian Gordon. As a reminder, the forward looking statements in our earnings release and eight K filing also apply to our comments on the call today. Both of those documents are available on our website as are reconciliations of any non GAAP financial measures mentioned on today's call along with their corresponding GAAP measures. Following prepared remarks this morning, we will take your questions.

Please limit yourself to one question and then reenter the queue for any additional questions. Today's conference call is being webcast and is also being recorded for replay via our website. And now, I'll turn it over to Chris.

Thanks, Scott, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to review our fourth quarter and fiscal year results. Obviously, our performance in 2024 did not meet our expectations, but I'm still immensely proud of our McDonald's system. It was a busy year and at times it felt like McDonald's was a part of almost every major news story reflecting the reach and visibility of our brand. Throughout it all, McDonald's people were resilient and responsive.

We stayed focused on our customers, acted swiftly when needed and continue to run our restaurants at a high level. To our employees, franchisees and suppliers, I want to say thank you. In 2024, global comp sales decreased 0.1% for the full year with comps up 0.4% in the fourth quarter, including positive comps across our IDL and IOM segments. In The U. S, comp sales were down 1.4% for Q4, amidst the impact of the E.

Coli outbreak linked to slivered onions on our quarter pounders. Ian will provide you with more texture on these results in just a minute. As we transition into 2025, several factors give me confidence that our performance will return to proper form over the next several quarters. First, we have the right strategy, accelerating the arches. Our MCD growth pillars still offer significant growth opportunities and I'm pleased with the 2025 market plans, particularly their balance of value and full margin food innovation.

Second, the U. S. Food safety issue is now largely behind us and we expect to have fully recovered by the beginning of Q2. At McDonald's, we always say that food safety is our number one priority and this unfortunate incident is an important reminder of that fact. The strength of our brand depends upon the absolute trust of our customers and I'm pleased by the positive feedback we've received from so many regarding our rapid and transparent handling of this issue.

And third, we'll continue to realize incremental benefits as more markets deploy new solutions from each of our three strategic technology platforms consumer, restaurant and company. Later, I'll come back and provide more visibility into our 2025 plans. But for now, let's move on to Ian, who will discuss Q4 and

full year results. Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. As Chris noted, the QSR industry remained challenged and our performance in 2024 fell short of our expectations. Pressure on spending persists, in particular with two significant cohorts of our consumer base, low income and families, particularly in Europe. Still, we're confident that our Accelerating the Arches strategy, which is rooted in customer insights and built on our inherent competitive advantages is right for our business to win in 2025 and beyond.

With respect to our quarter four performance, global comp sales growth was slightly positive. In The U. S, Quarter Four comp sales were negative, reflecting the impact of the food safety incident. When we met last quarter, we committed to bringing the full resources of McDonald's to bear to reengage the customer and we did just that. As Chris mentioned, by the beginning of Q2, we expect to have fully recovered.

The immediate actions we took to identify the cause allowed us to quickly shift the focus to regaining our customers' trust and reigniting their brand affinity. Throughout November and December, we saw sequential improvement in baseline traffic performance, including slightly positive comp guest count growth for the month of December and had a positive comp guest count gap to most near end competitors for the fourth quarter. These results were driven by our marketing efforts to amplify traffic drivers. This includes additional investment in our national value campaign and always on digital and media plans to drive momentum. In our international operated market segment, comp sales performance this quarter was slightly positive due to mixed results across the individual markets, including negative comps in The UK.

While QSR industry traffic was positive in only two of our big five markets, we had a positive comp guest count gap to most near end competitors across the majority of our largest markets. During a difficult time for the industry, we have acted with urgency and remain steadfast in continuing to focus on what's within our control, including refining and providing compelling value propositions, introducing exciting menu innovation and leaning into our one McDonald's Way approach to marketing by driving brand strength, building cultural relevance and connecting with our customers and crew in exciting ways. For example, on our value propositions, Canada has paired everyday affordable price or EDAP menus with strong meal bundles through the Canadian McValue menu, which features the $5.79 meal bundle and a $1 coffee EDAP offering, which drove coffee share gains in the quarter. Canada not only provided great value offers, but paired them with full margin promotions that connected with our fans through culturally relevant campaigns. One example is the Grinch meal, which generated nearly 30,000,000 impressions on social media, our highest user generated content ever in Canada.

These all helped to drive positive sales and guest count performance in the market, including positive guest count gap to near end competitors for the entirety of the fourth quarter. And in Germany, we've continued to meet customers where they are, even with a difficult industry backdrop. While QSR industry traffic in Germany has continued to contract further since the third quarter, we have continued to drive market share gains by expanding upon the already successful McSmart Menu, now offering a range of meal bundle options introduced at the September. We are seeing incrementality to the business driven by the extended value offerings and by layering on exciting menu news with full margin items such as Duram or the Big Arch, as well as the Big Rosti, which have made its annual return. In other markets such as Spain, we have continued to outperform the competition by driving strong execution of our Accelerating the Arches strategy, including continuing to focus on value through Menu4U, which is a branded equity that we have been able to capitalize on for over three years and delivering on digital execution with a month long Christmas calendar, boosting engagement on the app and driving an increase in identified users.

We also saw success from our One McDonald's Way approach to marketing, combining cultural relevance with global reach through a Friends TV show themed adult Happy Meal featuring our core menu items, including six Friends characters and a themed dipping sauce. The campaign provided a significant lift to our top line with a social media reach expanding well beyond just Spain. All of this contributed to the market's strong comp sales and guest count performance in the quarter, as well as share gains for both the quarter and the year. France, a market that we've talked about all year, started to see signs of improvement with positive comp sales and guest count gaps to near end competitors for the fourth quarter. These results were driven by our partnership with Hot Ones, providing three fiery sauces to fans, each one spicier than the next, being one of the most talked about campaigns over the last few years in the market.

We've also seen the success of the €4 Happy Meal, which has resonated with families driving an improvement in their brand perceptions around value and affordability and a lift in the Happy Meal category. We are encouraged by these signs of progress internationally and will continue to build upon the actions taken in 2024 so that we have a strong foundation for growth in 2025. Finally, in our International Developmental License segment, comp sales for the quarter were over 4%, largely driven by positive results in The Middle East and Japan. In The Middle East, the positive sales comp largely reflected lapping the impact of the war that began in October of twenty twenty three. And in China, we're seeing encouraging signs of stabilization.

In short, while the global QSR industry remains challenging, we're confident in our competitive strengths across our MCD growth pillars and our strong execution against the value expectations of our customers. Our ability to continually evolve to stay ahead of the customer positions us for success in any economic environment. Turning to the P and L, adjusted earnings per share were $2.83 for the quarter, a 4% decrease compared to the prior year in constant currencies, reflecting the pressure on our top line. Results also reflect higher other operating expense as well as the comparison to a prior year property sale gain. For the full year, adjusted operating margin was just over 46% with top line results generating more than $14,500,000,000 in restaurant margin dollars for the year, providing evidence of the resiliency of our business model.

Lastly, before I hand it back over to Chris, I want to touch briefly on our capital expenditures and free cash flow profile. Our CapEx spend for the year was just under $2,800,000,000 more than half was invested in new restaurant unit expansion across our U. S. And IOM segments, which enabled us to deliver on our openings target for the year. Our CapEx spend was slightly above the high end of the range we provided for the year as we invested more toward our future year development pipeline, setting us up for success as we continue to increase our pace of openings.

Our free cash flow conversion for the year was 81%, below our expected 90% range due to pressures on top line performance and higher capital spend to accelerate new restaurant growth. We have continued to follow our capital allocation priorities for the year. After investing to support long term growth of the business, we returned $7,700,000,000 of cash to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share buybacks. We remain committed to returning all excess free cash flow to shareholders over time. I'll talk about our 2025 outlook shortly, but first, let me hand it back over to Chris.

Thanks, Ian. Our ability to stay ahead of customers' changing needs and reimagine the McDonald's experience for tomorrow is the key to achieving our 2025 ambitions. We're moving forward with agility and urgency, getting back to guest count led growth and winning share from our competitors. Our unwavering focus on the MCD growth pillars will continue to unlock executional excellence and drive growth across our business. Our marketing efforts are reclaiming leadership in value and affordability through initiatives like everyday affordable price menus and meal bundles.

In The U. S, the January launch of the McValue platform provides consistent compelling value with the choice and flexibility our customers want. In many of our international markets, we are making further enhancements to our value programs in the first quarter to ensure that we are offering industry leading value. And with good value at the foundation, we will overlay a strong pipeline of creative marketing ideas that will delight our fans and will provide full margin check growth. Our core menu remains at the heart of our business.

We're excited about the significant opportunity we see within our chicken portfolio and see the potential to add another point of chicken market share by the end of twenty twenty six. We continue to rollout McRispe, which is now in over 70 markets and will be available in nearly all markets by the end of twenty twenty five. This year, there is incredible energy for the return of snack wraps in The U. S. Along with a few other markets, and The U.

S. Will also launch a new Chicken Strip offering. We'll continue to pulse in the Chicken Big Mac as a limited time only offering over time. In 2024, the Chicken Big Mac helped generate chicken market share growth in The France and The U. S.

With positive incrementality. Deployment of Best Burger continues. It's currently available in over 80 countries and we're on track to implement it in nearly all markets by the end of twenty twenty six. And we're excited to capture incremental growth with the big arch as we roll it out to more international markets this year. Our four ds continue to drive growth and we're actively doubling down on digital and development.

For digital, we know loyalty customers spend more than their non digital counterparts. We've made strong progress and we're on track toward our long term targets of two fifty million ninety day active users and 45,000,000,000 in annual system wide sales by the end of twenty twenty seven. To date, our ninety day active users totals has reached over 170,000,000 across 60 markets with system wide sales to loyalty members totaling approximately 30,000,000,000 in 2024. We will also continue to redefine convenience for our customers to ready on arrival with deployment underway in markets across the world. For development, we delivered on our twenty twenty four restaurant openings targets across the globe and we're on track to reach 50,000 restaurants by the end of twenty twenty seven.

Finally, our close partnership with our world class franchisees, including the recent renewal of our master franchise agreement with Arcos Dorados will be critical to driving our continued growth. Let me now turn it back over to Ian for details on our 2025 outlook.

Thanks, Chris. We're confident that our Accelerating the Arches strategy will continue to drive growth in 2025 and over the longer term. But as we discussed, there are varying levels of near term headwinds across markets. Our approach to our 2025 outlook reflects the current environment of softer declining restaurant industry traffic in The U. S.

And many of our larger markets. That said, as Chris noted, regardless of the operating environment, we remain steadfast on the execution of our Accelerating the Arches strategy and the continued rollout of the actions we began to take in 2024 across the system to drive guest count led growth and grow market share by outperforming our competitors. Our financial targets for 2025 reflect the benefit of these initiatives as well as our expectation of gradual stabilization of the macroeconomic and consumer environment, but does not include any impact from potential new tariffs. Should the underlying environment improve beyond our initial expectations, especially with respect to lower income consumers, we would expect to benefit disproportionately relative to our competitors. Specifically for 2025, driven by the durability of our business model, we're targeting our full year operating margin percent to be in the mid to high 40% range and above the 46.3% adjusted operating margin from 2024, primarily due to franchise margin performance.

This includes our expectation that our full year company operated margin percent will be slightly higher than the 14.8% we delivered in 2024, driven by top line growth and partly offset by continued cost pressures. With respect to G and A, our systems financial strength enables us to invest in areas that we expect will drive long term efficiencies for our people and for our stakeholders. Even with the muted top line growth in 2024, we maintain the right long term investment mindset as we were able to prioritize our run the business spend. We expect 2025 G and A as a percentage of system wide sales for the full year to be about 2.2%. Our 2025 target reflects continued investments in technology, digital and global business services or GBS.

You heard Chris mention the three strategic technology platforms earlier. Through the investments in these platforms, we plan to continue to get more efficient in running the business over time and ultimately free up more resources to continue to drive long term growth. We still have significant investment years ahead of us before these efficiencies are realized. Below the operating line, we're projecting interest expense this year to increase between 46% compared to 2024 due to higher average debt balances and interest rates and expect our full year effective tax rate to be between 2022%. Turning to restaurant development and capital expenditures, we expect net restaurant expansion in 2025 along with restaurants we opened in 2024 will contribute slightly over 2% to system wide sales growth as we continue to accelerate our new unit development.

We plan to spend between $3,000,000,000 and $3,200,000,000 this year with the majority invested in new unit openings across our U. S. And IOM segments. This increase in CapEx versus the prior year is in line with our expectation of about $300,000,000 to $500,000,000 increases each year through 2027 as we outlined at our December 2023 Investor Day. Globally, we plan to open approximately 2,200 restaurants this year with about a quarter of these openings in our U.

S. And IOM segments. We expect to open more than 1,600 restaurants in our IDL segment, including about 1,000 in China. Overall, we anticipate slightly over 4% unit growth from the nearly 1,800 net restaurant additions in 2025. Our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged.

First, to invest in the business to drive growth, including capital expenditures as well as investments in technology, digital and GBS second, to prioritize our dividend and third, to repurchase shares with remaining free cash flow over time. In 2025, we expect our net income to free cash flow conversion to be in the low to mid 80% range as we continue to step up strategic investments to drive sustainable long term growth of the business. Over the longer term, we continue to target free cash flow conversion in the 90% range, reflecting the resiliency of our business model. However, we do expect that the conversion percentage will be below that longer term target during the peaks in an investment cycle. Lastly, with a strong U.

S. Dollar that may continue to strengthen into 2025, we expect foreign currency to be a full year headwind to 2025 EPS, totaling in the range of $0.2 to $0.3 based on current exchange rates. As always, this is directional guidance only as rates will likely change as we move through the remainder of the year. The resilience of our business and our overall financial strength have put us in a position to succeed in any environment. And I'm confident that the continued execution of our Accelerating the Arches strategy sets us up to deliver long term growth for our system and create value for our shareholders.

Thank you, Ian. This year, McDonald's will celebrate its seventieth anniversary, seventy years of defining what it means to be the leader in our industry. Through generations of ever changing global economies, technological booms, extraordinary social and political evolution and resounding connection to the center of culture, we've grown stronger year after year by staying true to what we do best, serving delicious food with unmatched value to our customers while feeding and fostering communities around the world. McDonald's remains uniquely positioned to do just that. By staying true to our golden rule of treating everyone with dignity, fairness and respect, we continue to build connections that strengthen our brand and make positive impacts through our 40,000 plus local businesses around the world.

Our unwavering commitment to inclusion requires ongoing focus. And while we recently evolved our approach, McDonald's commitment to inclusion is steadfast. As I think about the road ahead for 2025, I'm reminded of a quote from our founder, Ray Kroc. He said that the two most important requirements for major success are first, being in the right place at the right time and second, doing something about it. We believe no one is better positioned than McDonald's to seize on the opportunities ahead, face complexities head on, and the words of Ray, do something about it.

We have all the tools we need to focus on what matters most to our communities and customers. As we look to 2025, we won't let up. We're playing to win. We have the right playbook in accelerating the arches. We have the right advantages, our size, our scale, our brand relevance.

We have the right mindset and a strong legacy of acting on our biggest and boldest ideas. We have the power of our three legged stool. Thank you to our remarkable franchisees, suppliers and employees. Your dedication to our McFamily and the communities you serve is unparalleled. We are grateful for your passion and so very proud of our partnership.

Together, I look forward to making the arches shine even brighter in 2025 and beyond. With that, we'll take questions.

Our first question is from Dennis Geiger with UBS.

Great. Good morning, guys. Thank you. Wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the early customer response to to McValue sort of if any updates to the latest on customer value perceptions in The U. S.

And if any thoughts to share sort of on the guest count check and margin impacts from the new platform? Thank you.

Sure. Good morning, Dennis. So we are it's obviously early days still with McValue, but we're pleased with how it's getting out of the gate. One of the things that we're looking at is take rates. We look at take rates on the $5 meal deal.

We look at take rates on the buy one, add one for $1 and those take rates are very much in line with what our expectations were for that. So we're pleased with how that's getting out of the gate. From a perception standpoint, as we have increased our focus on value in The U. S. Starting last year when we did launch the $5 meal deal and then extending into Q1, I've been pleased to see that we're seeing our improvement in getting back to leadership, particularly on the most recent visit with value and affordability.

So I think we're seeing the customers giving us credit for the value programs that we have put in place there. So feel good about that.

And maybe just Dennis, I'll just build on Chris because you were asking about check-in margins. And so I think just talking specifically about the buy one add one for $1 where I think we're seeing strong kind of check-in those transactions, in fact, accretive to our overall check in transactions that have a buy one add one in. Good margins, obviously. And I think just building on what Chris was talking about, I mean, I think consumers really appreciate the flexibility with that offer because it allows them to kind of build an outcome to what they want to get to from a product choice standpoint. I think the other thing I would just highlight is breakfast in particular, we've seen really strong take up of that offer and breakfast has been a really strong day part for The U.

S. Business through 2024. It's an area where we're taking share. And I think if you think ahead a little bit, this will be the fiftieth anniversary of breakfast in The U. S.

This year. And I think there'll be some really kind of interesting and exciting things that The U. S. Business does over the next little while around breakfast. Some more to come on that later.

Yes. Just to maybe add one other thing to what Ian was talking about. If you look at the $5 meal deal, even though that's compelling value, it's driving other purchases. So the average check on $5 meal deal for us in The U. S.

Is north of $10 So it's doing what we were hoping for when we launched that.

Our next question is from David Palmer with Evercore.

Thanks. A quick follow-up on that. In the fourth quarter, U. S. Comp reflected a negative check, slightly positive traffic.

Could you give us a sense of price versus mix in the quarter and why we saw what we saw there? And my main question is really on IOM. Any color that you can offer there? A lot of brands U. S.

Brands slowed in the back half of fourth quarter twenty twenty three. Did you see an acceleration through fourth quarter of twenty twenty four better exit rate in key IOM markets? And I know you've been doing some tinkering with value relaunches in key IOM markets. Any color on that would be helpful. Thank you.

Sure. I'll kind of just hit some high level comments and then as always I'll let Ian give the details. In The U. S, we were seeing as you know in early October, we were seeing strong performance in The U. S.

With both good check as well as positive GCs. And then of course, we had the unfortunate E. Coli incident. As you think about how then the quarter started to play out, we kind of hit our nadir in, I'd say, early November and then we saw sequential improvement through the balance of the quarter, which has now continued into Q1. But what you're seeing is, you're seeing that we are driving GCs and stealing share from a GC standpoint.

But not surprisingly, particularly now as we're into Q1 and we're launching a broader mid value platform, GCs are running ahead of check. And that's very much consistent with our experience as you're putting in new value programs, you will see check run ahead of GCs. I think Joe or run ahead of check. I think Joe has talked about that in the past. And then as you get that sort of bedded down and you introduce Food News and other things on top of that, you get the one two punch of check plus GC growth.

So that's what we're expecting in The U. S. From IOM, you're right to acknowledge that we're seeing improving trends there, but it really is almost on a market by market basis there. So we've talked about for basically about a year some of the opportunities that we had in France. I've been very pleased to see how that French business has continued to improve their performance and that's continuing into Q1.

So we feel good about France. We feel good about Canada. We continue to outperform in Germany. We continue to outperform in Italy. Our opportunities in IOM, the two markets that we are spending the most time thinking about right now are The U.

K. And Australia where, one, it's both a challenge market and two, frankly, we're not performing to our full potential. So I'd say net net on balance, we're seeing IOM improve. I think you saw that in the results, but there's still work to do in a few of our specific markets.

So David, just I'll just maybe double click on a

couple of things because Chris's response was pretty comprehensive. I think just maybe the reminder in The U. S. And we talked about this in the Q3 call was pre food safety incident. We were seeing almost kind of a mid single digit comp sale and a comp traffic just below that.

So I think that just is the reason I highlight that is because when we get kind of value driving momentum and then we start layering in kind of the as we've talked about before the full margin food news like the Chicken Big Mac in that instance or the great marketing execution, you there were a couple of specific there were a couple of specific things obviously that happened. First is you had an impact to quarter pounder sales, which is a high margin, high check driving transaction item. And then obviously to kind of regain momentum, regain trust, obviously we invested a fair bit in value and affordability and obviously in digital offers to get consumers back. And so that's certainly I would call it were kind of time bound impacts on check through the quarter that we certainly would expect to dissipate as we get kind of momentum where we want it to be through quarter one this year. On IOM, the only thing I'd add to what Chris said is, I mean, I think we're certainly, as you heard us in our upfront remarks, continuing to operate in uneven conditions.

And so we're really pleased while we're really pleased with the progress that we've driven through the actions we've taken in particular in areas like value and affordability, we're still dealing in a number of markets in our top markets where the industry is contracting. And so think our momentum is certainly moving in the right direction as you heard from Chris, but it's still certainly there's an element of headwind that we're continuing to navigate.

Our next question is from David Tarantino with Baird.

Hi, good morning. Just a clarification on how you're thinking about The U. S. Recovery. I think you mentioned you expected a full recovery from the E.

Coli incident by the beginning of Q2. I guess, one question is, what's I guess, what does that sort of mean in terms of kind of what type of comp momentum you're thinking once you get fully recovered? And then, I guess what's given you the line of sight to that? Thanks.

Yes. Thank you, David. So on The U. S. Recovery from E.

Coli, I think right now what we're seeing is that the E. Coli impact is now just localized to the areas that had the biggest impact. So think about that as sort of the Rocky Mountain region That was really the epicenter of the issue. And that continues to be down versus where we were heading into that impact. But very much seeing it at this point is just contained to that region, whereas the rest of The U.

S, we don't see an impact on that. I think importantly, what it gives us encouragement is we're looking at the trend in those affected areas, and that's what led to our comment around thinking that we'll have it behind us as we begin in Q2. To your point around what that actually means, it's going to be a function of us executing. So it's not just that we get E. Coli behind us, but it goes to we've got to make sure that we've got McValue off to a good start and we've got to make sure that we have strong marketing programs along with food innovation that goes with that.

I think what you see is that when we do that and we do that well, this business has the potential to be putting up both positive GCs as well as positive check and ultimately that drives comp. So that's our expectation. That's the plan that we put in place, which is if we execute that we get this business as I described in my comments back to proper form.

our upfront remarks talk about the fact that we've recovered trust levels at a national basis back to where they were pre incident level. We still got the isolated impacts that Chris talked about. And I think, obviously, what we're trying

S. Business back to the momentum that we were seeing to start Q4. I mean, we're very encouraged by the fact that as we talked about, we ended the year in December with positive slightly positive comp guest counts in The U. S. We know on a Q4 total basis that we were taking comparable traffic share versus the industry still in The U.

S. But we still got, as Chris talked about, just I think a little more work to do to get that momentum kind of fully back to where we think it can be as we work through Q1.

Our next question is from Sara Senatore with Bank of America.

Thanks. I just wanted to sort of follow-up I guess on check a little bit, which is you mentioned digital and loyalty growth is very strong. Those checks tend to be higher, but ultimately, I guess, same store sales growth was fairly muted. As you noted, there are lots of puts and takes. Perhaps breakfast has a negative check impact too.

But I guess, I'm trying to understand as you think about loyalty growth and digital orders, whether you would expect to see that materialize as an inflection in same store sales or how you're thinking about it because it does seem like we broadly see higher checks, but not necessarily kind of a trajectory change. And then just quickly on The UK, that's a market that has historically I think been very strong for McDonald's. So is there anything to note there? Just negative or sort of talking as a weak point surprised me a little bit.

Yes. Why don't I'll take The UK and then let Ian address the other question that you had, Sarah. So I think in The UK, if you think about this business, you're right. It's one that historically has performed quite well for us, been one of our strongest performers. I think what we've seen in The UK is certainly the consumer there is under pressure.

There's a cost of living issue that exists in The UK. That is putting pressure on the low income consumers consistent with what we've seen in The U. S. That's also putting pressure on families. We have a very big family business in The UK.

That has impacted us as families are looking to economize that has an impact on us. And you have a very strong local competitor there who's been very aggressive from a value standpoint, particularly on breakfast. And so you put all those things together and we're not seeing The UK business perform certainly at a level that we're used to historically. I think that said, we understand what needs to go in place and there's been a lot of work with our local franchisees there to do that. It goes to making sure that we have a strong savers platform.

That's been something that's been in the market for quite a while. We've introduced a five pound meal deal similar to what we have in The U. S. And there's also been a focus on the Happy Meal program to reengage that family business. I think paired with that though is we need to have better marketing in The UK.

I think we frankly didn't have the level of marketing execution in the back half of last year that we're used to. And so that's I think one of the big priorities for us as we head into 2025 is we've got to get that marketing to be kicking in so that we do have this one two punch of being competitive on value, which I feel very confident we now have in The UK. But you've got to be able to pair that with strong marketing programs, strong food innovation that can give you that sort of full margin balance. We've run this playbook. Many of the things that I'm describing were the same issues that we faced in France.

The progress and the momentum that we're seeing on the French business now is what gives us confidence that we'll be able to get to the same place on The UK, but certainly work to do in The UK.

So just Sarah to circle back on your check question and I'm going to exclude kind of The U. S. Obviously the food safety kind of specific disruptions, which again are kind of temporary and time bound. I think more broadly, I mean, obviously, you've got a few things going on. I think with check, you've got obviously pricing that's continuing to moderate because of the levels of inflation that are coming down.

You've got us kind of making what I'll call some structural adjustments on value and affordability to ensure that we're kind of meeting the needs of consumer that's having kind of a reset on check. But obviously, I think when you get kind of past those adjustments, I mean, I think there's we've got a lot of ability to kind of continue to drive strong check. And obviously, we've got to start doing that by getting the right levels of momentum in the business. I mean, The U. S.

And kind of where we were pre food safety incident is I think the best demonstration of that. Again, if you think about where we were for the first three weeks of October with that kind of strong sales and then strong guest count build, obviously kind of building on each other as we've had momentum and then kind of layer in these exciting food or marketing events. France is another example. Obviously, as you know from all the conversations we had on France throughout 2024, again, as we've started to see that kind of positive momentum come into effect and then you look at Q4 where we had the Chicken Figmaq activation, we had this kind of hot sauce, fiery sauce kind of activation, which were strong food events with great marketing execution. Again, we were able to build both guest count and check volume.

I think talking about digital specifically, digital certainly and loyalty in particular are going to be really important ways for us to continue to drive check. As you know, we've talked a lot about the fact that loyalty drives more visits and those customers spend more over time. And as we are continuing to build new and incremental capabilities and sources of value for consumers, we know we're going to be able to get those customers to spend more as they visit us. So I think digital will be a really important component of how we drive check and frequency as we look forward.

Our next question is from Brian Harbour with Morgan Stanley.

Yes, thanks. Good morning guys. A quick one, just could you kind of spell out roughly where you'd expect unit growth to be in U. S. Versus IOM?

I know you kind of gave it together. But and then maybe just a broader question. How has new unit performance been? Obviously, you seem to have leaned into that even more so than you spoke about a little over a year ago and you talked about kind of pulling forward some of that growth. But could you just comment on how you've seen that fare over the last year?

Yes. Good morning, Brian. Well, I think on unit growth, we said we expect as a system about 2,200 gross openings and about a quarter of that to be in our wholly owned market. I would say of the quarter about 70% of those openings would be in IOM and the rest roughly in The U. S.

I mean, I think as you heard us say, we hit our development plans in 2024. And you know based on what we talked about at Investor Day that we're kind of stepping up in our wholly owned markets to get to a gross opening rate of 1,000 units a year in '27. So each year is kind of a continual step up, '25 is a big step up over '24 and we feel confident about our pipelines. We've done a lot of work, as you've heard us talk about previously, to identify where we need to be. We've done a lot of work to get the resourcing in place to build the pipeline, which obviously you need to do well in advance of kind of actually opening units.

McDonald's (MCD) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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