Earlier today (Thursday, January 10th), we learned that the BlackBox Index of samestore sales for December 2018 was +2.0%, with same-store traffic down by -0.9%. The December 2018 number was the best month since August 2015.
Following our checks for McDonald’s (MCD; Buy) Foundational business segment for Q4E, we retain our +6.0% same-store sales projection, modestly above sellside consensus. Although McDonald’s Japan — the largest part of the Foundational segment — likely had its worst month of 2018 in terms of same-store sales in October 2018, we believe a robust December 2018 helped McDonald’s Japan post a midsingle digit comp for Q4 2018 that was very similar to its Q3 2018 comp (a touch better in Q4 than in Q3). While October’s same-store sales for McDonald’s Japan were likely up in low-single-digit territory, November was better (mid-single digits), and December appears to have reached high-single digits.
With this report, we update our data-driven Kalinowski Family Dining Index for Q4E from +1.6% to +2.0%. This 40 basis-point increase is based on our latest proprietary checks/data as regards same-store sales performance so far for this segment during the second half of November and the first half of December. (We would note that this increase follows the 40 basis-point increase we already made to this index back on December 3rd; for more details please refer to our report of that date entitled “Updating our Q4E Kalinowski Family Dining Index.”)