McDonald's to cash in on China's fast-food craving http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2007-01-19T053438Z_01_SP244667_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-MCDONALDS-FOOD-DRIVETHRUS-DC.XML
Fri Jan 19, 2007
BEIJING (Reuters) - McDonald's Corp. has signed a deal with a major Chinese oil firm to build drive-thru restaurants at its petrol stations to cash in on the country's huge appetite for fast food and cars.
"Even if you take a small percentage, at 1 percent, that is 300 potential locations," McDonald's (China) Co. Ltd. chief executive Jeffrey Schwartz said on Friday at the opening of McDonald's 16th drive-thru at a Sinopec petrol station on the outskirts of Beijing.
Sinopec has about 30,000 petrol stations in China. McDonald's has pushed to set up drive-thru restaurants in China in a bid to cash in on a rapid rise in car ownership in the world's second-largest market for automobiles. Schwartz said the 20-year agreement with Sinopec was exclusive.
"We will be around 1,000 restaurants by the '08 Beijing Olympics," Schwartz said, adding that the company planned to open "at least" 100 stores per year, and "at least half" of those would be drive-thrus.
Schwartz said McDonald's currently had 780 restaurants in China. Rival Yum! Brands Inc. operates more than 1,700 KFC restaurants in China and opens a new one every day on average.
Yum! is also pushing ahead with plans to add more drive-thru restaurants to its KFC business in China, but is taking a more cautious approach than McDonald's.
Yum plans to open 100 KFC drive-thrus in China over the next three years, from the handful it now operates in the country.
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