Dallas, Texas 12/27/2013 (FINANCIALSTRENDS) – McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD), the fast food retailer definitely does not have it good this Christmas season. In the second week of December, went overboard with spicy chicken wings which were overpriced and in Japan, the restaurant has failed to be successful.
According, to reports from Japan, in the past 5 months the retailer has been losing business and as final recourse, McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) has chosen to close down nearly 74 stores across the nation. In the country, franchises are only 50% by the food retailer, while the rest is held by the franchisee. However, in the past half-year, there has been no turn around on sales reported and the management has chosen to exit the non-performing store fronts. The same-store sales had dropped to 10.4% .Sales has been affected in the U.S as well, the slide being 0.8%; besides, sales in the APMEA region were 2.3%. Europe was the only region which recorded high sales of 1.9%. However, Germany was not one of the high selling countries.
Volatility in the food retail sector
Besides, McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) other fast food chains too have noted volatility and the continued poor performance for McDonald has definitely set the segment astir.
There was more trouble awaiting later weeks.
McDonald has had a bad run with new range of chicken wings which the retailer wanted to promote. Following the promotion, the retailer chose to hold 10 million pounds of chicken wings. However, the product called Mighty Wings was affected by a combination of spiciness as well as high prices.
McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) admits that the overall sale in U.S. has been affected and the traffic continues to drop nationwide. However, the retailer has a good success with its gift cards. Interestingly, it was the out-performer for this season. The overall card sales, allowed with Master Card and Visa was found to be 7.3%
