Food & Beverage

Star-power, marketing boost McDonald's Q3 US sales

U.S. sales perked up substantially for the fast food giant in the third quarter, though international results still leave much to be desired.

Photo: iStock

October 8, 2020

McDonald's is likely singing the praises of both star power and marketing mix today after reporting a surge in September sales during its promotion tied to rapper Travis Scott's favorite Mickey D meal. The brand said in its morning third-quarter earnings report that the promotion was key in driving September same-store sales up to its highest level in nearly 10 years.

The news was part of the Chicago-based QSR's Q3 sales results, which showed significant improvement over the previous quarter for U.S. stores, but still left much to be desired internationally, where COVID-19-related closures and other factors helped drive down its international markets segment same-store sales 4.4%.

Globally, Q3 same-stores sales fell 2.2% over last year's quarter, which while not great is far better than the Q2 drop in same-store sales of 23.9% from the previous year's quarter.

In Q3, the chain also reported:

Quarterly U.S. comp sales grew 4.6%
Quarterly global same-store sales fell 2.2%.
Quarterly cash dividend grew 3% to $1.29 per share, payable on Dec. 15 to shareholders of record on Dec. 1.

"Our third quarter performance demonstrates the underlying resilience of the McDonald's brand. Our unique strengths, including our unrivaled drive-thru presence around the world, advanced delivery and digital capabilities, and marketing scale have become even more important during the pandemic," McDonald's President and CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a news release about the results this morning. "Our prior investments in these areas position us to further our competitive advantage and enable restaurant crew to continue to safely provide customers our great tasting food. Today's dividend increase reflects our strong financial position and represents continued confidence in our ability to drive profitable growth and long-term shareholder value while still investing in our people and the business."