McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) said its quarterly results were less than acceptable for several reasons.
First, it had too many promotions offered to customers
Thus, customers got confused, and the number of promotions also appeared to slow service. McDonald’s replaced the CEO of its McDonald’s USA operations. The overall McDonald’s CEO, Chris Kempczinski, was ebullient when talking about the expected new performance of the unit.
Skye Anderson will take the job because the unit needs “focus and urgency to these efforts given her deep system knowledge, operational discipline, and proven ability to drive change and deliver results for everyone in our System.” Finally, more important than these was Kempczinski’s comment about customer income. On the earnings call, he said, “Clearly, when you have elevated gas prices, which is the core issue that I think we’re all seeing about in the press right now, gas prices, inflation on that, that is going to disproportionately impact low-income consumers.” He expects that to continue. Low-income consumers have been critical to the fortunes of McDonald’s and its fast-food rivals.