McDonald's
Overview
McDonald's (맥도날드) (McDonald's Corporation) is the world's largest fast-food franchise company, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It started in 1940 as a small hamburger stand opened by brothers Richard McDonald and Maurice McDonald (리처드 맥도날드와 모리스 맥도날드) in San Bernardino, California, and grew into a global brand after Ray Kroc (레이 크록) fully launched the franchise business in 1955. Today it operates more than 40,000 stores in roughly 100 countries, and an average of more than 60 million customers are estimated to visit each day. Its brand value always ranks among the very top in global brand rankings, and it is regarded as the company that established the standard for the fast-food industry.
Key Details
Founding and Growth
At McDonald's (맥도날드), the McDonald brothers introduced the "Speedy System (스피디 시스템)," which served food immediately after ordering, drastically shortening cooking times. In 1948, they simplified the menu to a small number of items such as hamburgers, french fries, and drinks, and designed an assembly-line-style kitchen to establish a mass-production system. In 1954, Ray Kroc (레이 크록), a milkshake mixer salesman, visited the store, sensed its potential, and acquired the franchise rights, opening the first franchise store in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955. In 1961, Kroc bought the trademark rights from the McDonald brothers, and in 1965 the company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Beginning with its entry into Canada in 1967, it expanded into Puerto Rico, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, and elsewhere, and in 1990 it opened a store in Moscow, Russia, which was recorded as a symbolic event marking the end of the Cold War.
Business Model
The core profit structure of McDonald's (맥도날드) lies not in simply selling hamburgers but in real estate and franchise royalties. The headquarters secures prime locations and leases them, receiving a certain percentage of sales from franchisees as royalties and rent. For this reason, McDonald's is often described as "not a hamburger company but a real estate company." Its competitiveness rests on providing the same taste and service at any store through standardized operating manuals, a centralized supply chain, and large-scale advertising and marketing. About 95% of its stores worldwide are franchises, and the proportion of company-owned stores is not large.
Signature Menu Items and Brand Assets
Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, McNuggets, McChicken, french fries, and McFlurry are among its signature items. The Big Mac in particular, since its launch in 1967, carries such symbolic weight that it is used as the benchmark product for the "Big Mac Index (빅맥 지수)," which compares price levels across countries. The Happy Meal (해피밀), introduced in 1979, created the prototype of the children's set menu, and character marketing such as Ronald McDonald and McDonaldland contributed greatly to building brand awareness. The "M" logo, known as the Golden Arches, is one of the most widely recognized trademarks in the world.
McDonald's in South Korea
It entered South Korea in 1986 starting with the Apgujeong store in Seoul, and rapidly expanded brand awareness ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. In 2020, the Korean business rights were sold to an affiliate of KG Group, and McDonald's Korea began operating as an independent corporation, after which ownership changes between private equity funds and strategic investors continued. Localized menu items such as the Big Mac, McSpicy Shanghai Burger, and 1955 Burger, along with the expansion of delivery services, are the main drivers of sales growth.
Controversies and Social Issues
McDonald's (맥도날드) has been constantly criticized over issues such as obesity and health problems, working conditions, animal welfare, and environmental pollution from packaging. The 2004 documentary 《Super Size Me (슈퍼 사이즈 미)》 sparked the obesity debate in the United States, and in response McDonald's pushed forward with reducing advertising aimed at children, disclosing nutritional information, and introducing healthier menu items such as salads and fruit. In recent years, it has been strengthening ESG management, including reducing carbon emissions, switching to recyclable packaging, and experimenting with alternative protein menu items.
Latest Trends
In 2024–2025, McDonald's (맥도날드) is focusing on restoring price competitiveness in response to high inflation and sluggish consumption. In the United States, it reintroduced value promotions such as the $5 meal deal, and in Asian markets including South Korea, it is expanding delivery and subscription-based discount programs and app-based reward memberships. At the same time, store automation, digital ordering kiosks, and AI-based order recommendation systems are being introduced at an accelerating pace, and in some markets a generative AI voice ordering system has been piloted at drive-thrus. Meanwhile, consumer boycotts related to conflict in the Middle East, rising raw material and labor costs, and minimum wage increases in various countries are weighing on profitability. On the menu side, it is strengthening chicken burgers and coffee and dessert lineups to compete with cafe brands such as Starbucks (스타벅스), and an experiment with a new cafe brand tentatively named "CosMc (코스MC)" has also been reported. Overall, the trend is for McDonald's to place the weight of its strategy on the digital transformation and operational efficiency of existing stores and on improving franchisee profitability rather than large-scale store expansion.
Related Topics
- [[Franchising]]
- [[Fast food]]
- [[Hamburger]]
- [[Starbucks]]
- [[Coca-Cola]]
- [[Big Mac Index]]
- [[Multinational corporation]]