MCD Efforts to Speed Up the Drive-Thru Already Paying Off
By Mark Kalinowski
Published on April 23, 2019 at 12:00 AM
So far this year, McDonald’s (MCD; Buy) U.S. same-store sales seem to be meaningfully outpacing those of its quick-service burger rivals. Why is this? How sustainable is it? While there are multiple reasons for McDonald’s success so far this year — for example, we believe fresh-beef Quarter Pounders and Quarter Pounder line extensions have sold rather well — this report focuses on improvements that we believe have been made in terms of average speed at the drive-thru. We believe there is room for significant improvement on this front, those improvements have started, and there’s plenty more to be had over time — all of which is good news for future same-store sales trends. We reiterate our Buy rating on MCD and note the following: