McDonald's continues to reap good returns despite the crisis

CEBU, Philippines - While sales of other food businesses, especially those in the fine dining segment, continue to slide due to the soft economy and shrinking consumer spending, McDonald’s Philippines remains upbeat and posted sales increases.

This according to George Tan Yang, the Chairman of Golden Arches Development Corporation, the Philippine franchisee of American brand McDonald’s, during the recently held “Meet the Business Icons.”

“Meet the Business Icons” is one of the highlights of the entrepreneurship segment of the Cebu Business Month celebration this year.

Yang bared the sound standing of McDonald’s amidst today’s tough economic situation saying that fortunately, McDonalds has not really experienced certain downturns caused by the rough economic conditions and in fact their sales have been going up.            

“Our corporate sales and even customer count during these times of crisis went up and this could be attributed to the shift of consumer preference over food chains instead of sit-down casual restaurants,” said Yang.

He said that the ones severely affected by the current economic crisis are the casual dining restaurants, which cost more because patrons have lessened their visits to save.

“Many casual restaurants experienced drop in sales while we in turn experienced increases in our sales because consumers shifted to eating in fast food chains. We work hard to give consumer satisfaction, quality and good service so we become more dependable at these times of crisis,” he added. 

Yang also owns other posh restaurant concepts in the country like Chili’s, Flop Japs and he is also a part-owner of another American restaurant concept TGI Friday’s.

“For McDonald’s, overall it was positive although our casual restaurants did experienced some downturn but these were not drastic. The Philippines is still fortunate because we were not badly hit by the economic crisis,” said Yang.

Yang brought the McDonald’s brand in the Philippines in the year 1981 and he said that bringing this popular international brand was not easy because it was hard to convince his American partners to realize the different realities of doing business in the Philippines.

Out of the 300 McDonald’s outlets nationwide, the company owns 180 stores and Yang said that they plan to open more outlets this year.

He said that with their “pretty good sales increase”, McDonald’s might possibly open around 15 new outlets here in the country this year.

Yang said that in terms of expansion, the only limitation they face is the lack of strategic locations because in terms of resources, there are a lot of investors interested to franchise McDonald’s considering its brand image.

He said that right now, McDonald’s is already big enough and they intend to focus on what they are currently doing to be in the top of their game and to get ahead of the competition.

“Since our sales continue to increase, this means that there are still opportunities during crisis. Crisis is a chance for everybody to shine when all else are falling apart. We just need to go back to basics, pay attention to what works for us best; work harder, and provide our clients good quality and better service,” said Yang.

The event was also attended by two other business icons Dr. Alfonso A. Uy, the president of La Filipina Uy Gongco Corporation and Cebuano entrepreneur Justin Uy, the president of Profood International Corporation.