McDonald's December revenue nears pre-covid level, targets 25-30 stores in FY22

Owners of McDonald’s west and south in India, Westlife Development Ltd, revenues for Q3FY21 zoomed to 85-90% of pre-COVID levels with December revenues almost back to pre-COVID levels.

Hardcastle Restaurants that owns the franchisee right for the brand is also planning to expand the QSR chain by adding more stores to its network.

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“The company plans to open three new stores in this quarter and then resume its growth journey of adding 25-40 stores every year from the next fiscal,” shared Amit Jatia, Vice Chairman, Westlife Development. 

"Convenience channels are here to stay. For occasional use for the restaurants, where people used to come for hang-outs and celebrate, this was not being met and that need is coming back. It would not take away (business) from the convenience channels," he added.

Westlife Development’s strong sales performance in the quarter was driven by the Ccompany’s omni-channel strategy.  It started its recovery journey in October when its biggest market – Maharashtra finally opened up for dine-in.

"The business has gone up month after month. In December, we were almost 97 per cent of the pre-COVID-19 sales. Even Ebitda margin for the month of December was 13.1 per cent, which gave us a lot of hope, as we are moving up month on month. I feel it is here to stay," added Jatia.

In December, despite substantial regulatory restrictions in several of its markets, the Company saw a phenomenal uptake in sales with revenues coming back to 97% pre-COVID levels. Dine-in recovered 75-80%, even with night curfews and the 50% capacity constraint. McCafé recovered over 80% vis a vis pre-COVID levels. At the same time, sales from convenience channels accelerated to 120% of pre-COVID levels in the month, again notwithstanding the night curfews in some of its key markets.

The Company also got back on its growth path and added three new McDonald's restaurants and three new McCafés to its portfolio.

Currently, Westlife Development operates 304 McDonald's stores in 42 cities of the western and southern India.

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"Around 60-70 per cent of new stores would come in the six key cities - Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad; and the rest 30 per cent into smaller towns," he concluded.