McDonald's, the American fast food giant, announced in this past February that it planned to open 1, 900 new restaurants worldwide in 2023, half of which would be in China. It’s well known that the COVID-19 Pandemic heavily hit the world restaurant industry including the Chinese restaurant industry. McDonald's, however, seems to be totally different  in Chinese market because it not only survived the COVID-19 Pandemic from 2019 to 2022 but also is developing an ambitious plan. People cannot help but ask a question: why MacDonald’s is thriving in China？

At first thought, McDonald's looks nothing but a fast food service provider, which serves hamburgers, as well as fast food such as French fries, fried chicken, soda, ice cream, salad and fruit. But after second thought, we will find out that McDonald's is not only a fast food chain giant but also a symbol of American culture. According to some scientific research, ordinary Chinese citizens tend to associate McDonald's with the United States of America and 98% of Chinese schoolchildren could identify Ronald McDonald, making him as well known as the Chinese paper bill. What’s more important, according to brand value network, the reason behind McDonald’s success lies in the fact that "McDonald's Doctrine" has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the Chinese people, the Chinese culture is becoming "McDonaldized " and more and more Chinese consumers have accepted four modern principles of McDonald's.

First, efficiency. It’s well known that efficiency is the central part of our life and nothing can be done without efficiency. According to a research, in the 1950s, McDonald's can serve a hamburger, a bag of French fries, and a milkshake to a customer in exactly 50 seconds. Such a high efficiency can definitely leave a good impression on every Chinese customer.

Second, predictability. According to McDonald's operation manual, all McDonald’s foods have a fixed formula, or a fixed format. Hence, McDonald’s can make everything it does as predictable as possible so that every Chinese customer can have a peace of mind.

Third, uniformity. For example, according to the first McDonald’s operating manual, the weight of a regular raw hamburger was set at 1.6 ounces and its size was set at 3.875 inches across, and its fat content was set at 19%. So, almost anywhere in China, a Chinese person can walk into a McDonald’s restaurant and purchase the same Hamburger in precisely the same way. Uniformity results from the Industrial Revolution and brings convenience to our daily life.

Fourth, control. It’s well known that people have good and bad days, sometimes they let their minds wander, or simply decide to try something in a different way. In order to deal with the unpredictable human nature, McDonald’s has automated its equipment to cook food at a fixed temperature for a set length of time so that a fixed outcome is guaranteed. Therefore, McDonald’s can make both buyers and sellers happy, which meets the requirements of Chinese customers.

According to Brand Value Network, McDonald’s  four modern principles make it very popular in China. As of today, McDonald’s has more than 40,000 stores in over 100 countries with 1.9 million employees and 60 million customers daily. According to China brand value evaluation standard, McDonald’s is one of the most successful restaurant Chains and a model of global service industry, so the growth potential in China is absolutely massive.

In 1990, McDonald’s opened its first store in Shenzhen, China. Two years later in 1992, McDonald’s opened “the World’s largest store” in Beijing, which had 700 seats, 20 cash registers and served 40,000 customers on the opening day. As of February, 2023, McDonald’s has about 4,500 stores in China and in the year of 2022, it opened 700 new stores. In the year of 2023, McDonald’s planned to open an additional 900 new stores, in other words, the burger giant is planning to open a new store in China about every 10 hours. According to brand value network, 45% of its fast food industry revenue in China comes from its first tier cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Much of the rest of China remains untapped, but now McDonald’s see opportunities in secondary and tertiary cities which means there’s a lot of runways for growth.

On the ranking of “The 2nd Daguan·Keweiwei World Brand Value Top 900” released on July, 2022,  McDonald's brand value was 92.035 billion RMB, ranking the 283rd.

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作者：杨瑞安