Thirty years after its arrival, McDonald's is the undisputed No. 1 fast-food chain in Japan, a country which devours more of its hamburgers and fries than any other outside of the US.
On July 20, 1971 McDonald's ventured into the unknown by opening its first restaurant in the center of Tokyo.
"Hamburgers were a revolutionary product in a country which until then had eaten fish and rice," said Kenji Kaniya, director of communications at McDonald's Japan.
But it soon transpired that Japan was a perfect market for the world's leading fast-food chain, he said.
Without abandoning their traditional tastes, the Japanese quickly took to this new American flavor, gorging chips and burger buns by the truckloads.
As of last year, McDonald's Japan had 3,676 restaurants nationwide and generated ?431.1 billion (US$3.59 billion) in revenue -- equivalent to 20 percent of its US sales.
But the McDonald's franchise is still hungry for more.
"We have set ourselves a goal to open 10,000 restaurants, boost our share of the restaurant market to five percent from two percent" and increase sales revenue to one trillion yen by the end of 2010, the charismatic head of the group, Den Fujita said recently.
To achieve these ambitious objectives the "self-made man" will court investors to buy stakes in the burger maker.
McDonald's Japan will make history on July 26 by becoming the first affiliate of the US group to go public as it floats on the tech-weighted JASDAQ stock exchange.
McDonald's will offer 12 million new shares as well as 14.2 million existing shares at ?4,300 a piece.
As a result the group hopes to generate ?51.6 billion, which will be used to open yet more outlets at stations and office blocks in particular, said Kaniya.
But the Japanese junk food market is already saturated with restaurants and cafes, argue analysts, who are beginning to wonder whether the fast-food giant's eyes are bigger that Japan's stomach.
However expansion is only one of McDonald's competitive edges. The other is price, which is a powerful card to hold in a country where income levels have been hit hard by a decade-long economic slump
In February 2000, McDonald's Japan launched the "budget burger." From Monday to Friday hungry punters can grab a hamburger for ?65 yen (US$0.54), significantly cheaper than a traditional "onigiri" -- a rice ball wrapped in seaweed with a variety of fillings, equivalent to a sandwich.
Thanks to a huge publicity campaign, more than 1.32 billion people walked through the golden arches last year, an 18 percent surge from the previous year.
Young diners have been joined by an increasing number of office workers looking for a way to cut back on daily spending, said Kaniya.
After becoming Japan's number one restaurant chain in 1982, MacDonald's has left nothing to chance.
It has divided Japan into 717 "market zones" to deal more effectively with increasing competition from more traditional rivals and the new cafes and snack bars that continue to surface, such as "Yoshinoya," a fast-food chain specializing in serving up cheap helpings of roast beef.
McDonald's controls 65 percent of the fast-food market, well ahead of Japan's Mos Burger or Lotteria. Unable to take the heat, Burger King, one McDonald's major rivals worldwide, announced in March it was pulling out of Japan, and transferring its outlets to Lotteria.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS