Knock Knock, It’s Your Big Mac:
All told, McDonald’s delivers in some 25 cities, with a half-dozen more on deck. The company just launched deliveries in Taipei, with 1,000 drivers, is expanding Shanghai to citywide service this summer, and is testing the concept in Beirut and Riyadh. In Egypt, where the setup was pioneered in 1995, deliveries now account for 27% of all McDonald’s revenue and up to 80% at some restaurants. Globally, delivery sales are expected to total more than $110 million in 2007, up from $90 million last year, the company says. While that’s spare change for the $21.6 billion giant, the business is growing by 20% to 30% annually, more than triple the chain’s overall rate.It’s profitable, too. Delivery margins usually top the 13% to 14% that McDonald’s outlets generally yield. That’s because the courier fee, which runs from 50 cents to $1, covers the cost of handling phoned-in orders and the fleets of drivers and motorbikes.
Don’t expect to get your burger delivered here though:
One place, though, that the Golden Arches won’t come knocking is the U.S. The delivery model works well in congested cities where there’s no affordable space for drive-through windows, but plenty of cheap labor to ferry the food to customers.