OAK BROOK Ill. McDonald’s Corp. reported on Tuesday an 8.5-percent jump in August global same-store sales, with a 4.5-percent increase in the United States, driven by beverages, the chain’s breakfast menu and Olympic advertising for the new Southern Style chicken sandwich.
The largest restaurant company, based here, has been one of few in the industry able to withstand the economic malaise and to post positive sales trends even as consumers shy away from dining out because of higher gas prices, a housing market slump and unemployment concerns.
In August, McDonald’s restaurants in Europe recorded same-store sales increase of 11.6 percent. Locations in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa region posted a same-store sales gain of 10 percent.
The results, especially in the United States, where McDonald’s operates or franchises more than 14,000 restaurants of the 31,000-unit-plus global system, were described by restaurant analyst David Palmer at UBS Equity Research as “nearly double the U.S. fast-food industry.”
Palmer’s research estimated that U.S. same-store sales in the quick-service segment had slowed in August to about a 2-percent gain, from an increase of between 3 percent and 4 percent in July. Many restaurant companies no longer provide monthly same-store sales results and have moved to a quarterly reporting schedule, so there is little official company data available.
David Tarantino, a restaurant securities analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co., said this week in a report that a survey of 57 privately held restaurants representing as much as $6 billion in sales pointed to sluggish guest traffic in August. About 42 percent of the respondents to the Baird survey said sales last month were below expectations, and 29 percent of respondents said results came in higher than expected. The restaurants cited high gas prices, softer consumer confidence, housing market issues, Olympic broadcasting and severe weather as pressures to guest visits.