McDonald's Has Yum! Envy in China (MCD, YUM)

McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) may be the world’s largest fast food chain. In fact, we have even noted how it is effectively worth more than all public US restaurant companies combined.  The company is living up to its public company goals and that is where the large must become even larger.  Today brought on talk that McDonald’s would nearly double its presence in China over the next three years.  It sounds like Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM) is the envy of McDonald’s.  When you compare the efforts in China, McDonald’s has a lot of catching up to do.  The McDonald’s goals are lofty, but they are dwarfed by Yum!’s efforts.

A Dow Jones interview from last night showed that the company plans to grow its China store count from about 1,100 today up to 2,000 units by the end of 2013.  Perhaps even more important is that it wants to see its sales growth of more than 3% in China with income growth above 7%.  This is effectively on the heels of McDonald’s opening up its Hamburger University in China.

In 2009, Yum!’s operating profit for the China Division was $602 million and it opened more than 500 new restaurants last year in mainland China.  KFC is the flagship brand for Yum! in China, and it has over 2,870 restaurants in more than 650 cities.  It now opens up about 1 store per day .  Pizza Hut in mainland China has over 450 Pizza Hut Casual Dining restaurants in more than 100 cities and an additional 101 Pizza Hut Home Service delivery units.

So far China still belongs to Yum!…. McDonald’s wants 2,000 units by 2013.  Yum! wants a hell of a lot more, as it says on its China site, “Each of our brands has great momentum in China as we continue our goal of at least 20,000 units over the long-term in mainland China.”

That’s 20,000 for Yum! versus 2,000 for McDonald’s.

JON C. OGG