McDonald’s Malaysia, which is operating under Gerbang Alaf Restaurants Sdn Bhd, revealed several interesting key figures during its media briefing on 2 March 2022. As one of the country’s leading fast food chains, McDonald’s returned to growth in 2021 with a 15% year-on-year increase in revenue to RM 2.35 billion, a reverse from a 4% year-on-year decline in 2020. The company grew 11% year-on-year before the pandemic in 2019. The target for 2022 is double-digit growth.

At the briefing, McDonald’s revealed it operated 318 outlets throughout Malaysia and employed more than 15,000 Malaysians, serving 13.5 million customers a month. The fast food operator opened 33 new outlets in the past 2 years with plans to add 35 new drive-thru restaurants in 2022. The vision for 2026 is to open up to 500 stores with a total investment of RM 1.35 billion, including 155 restaurant remodeling. The expansion means there will be 50,000 jobs by 2026. The QSR chain will move into more tier 2 and tier 3 cities including expanding in Sabah and Sarawak.

McDonald’s is the number one drive-thru service provider with 214 drive-thru stores nationwide, with 67% of stores in the drive-thru format.

The fast food chain is also the number 1 espresso coffee brand for QSR with a 23.5% market share. It is also the number 1 delivery service for a single brand with a 35% market share. Over 9 million McD App have been dowloaded since 2018.

Despite the growth in delivery and drive-thru, McDonald’s is also encouraging more consumers to dine-in by enticing them with strong data connectivity and offering a cleaned environment and a safe place to meet.

McDonald’s increased its prices in February 2022 by an average of 2%.

When it comes to plant-based offering, McDonald’s will continue to wait for the direction globally and will only launch plant-based once it feels plant-based is viable for Malaysian consumers. Dato’ Azmir Jaafar said there is no timeline when it comes to bringing in plant-based option into Malaysia.