McDonald's is a company that operates, franchises, services, and continually grows in the quick service restaurant business. According to McDonald's, approximately 80% of McDonald's restaurants are in eight markets: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. McDonald's has restaurants all over the world in 121 countries serving 46 million customers each day. McDonald's also has other partner restaurants with brand names such as: Aroma Café, Boston Market, Chipotle and Donatos Pizzeria generating $1 billion in annual sales collectively.
McDonald's is comprised of many restaurants that are operated by the company, however they also have a large amount of franchises. Under the terms of the franchise arrangements, the franchisees are operated under joint-venture agreements. McDonald's relies heavily on its franchising activities with approximately 70% of the restaurants being owned and operated by independent business people all over the world. The company is an equal opportunity franchiser with a proven 34% of franchiser and 70% of applicants being US minorities and women (McDonald's, 2002). McDonald's offers support in all areas of franchising from operations, training, advertising and marketing to real estate, construction, purchasing and equipment. In 2001, franchise sales amounted to 24,838 million dollars with company-operated sales and affiliated sales amounting to 15,297 million dollars (McDonald's, 2002).
McDonald's also maintains a strong sense of social responsibility. They are responsible for many contributions to local community development, disaster relief, educational programs, worldwide recycling, resource conservation, and waste reduction programs and of course the Ronald McDonald House Charities. In 2001, McDonald's has $1,419,800,000 for their outstanding efforts of goodwill.
There are a lot of factors that make McDonald's into a great investment opportunity.
