McDonald's Holdings Company(Japan),Ltd. said existing-store sales rose 10.0% in September from a year earlier, and all-store sales rose 12.2%. Existing-store figures cover stores open 13 months or more; all-store sales add company-run and franchised restaurants.
Spend led, traffic followed
Customer count rose 3.3% and average spend per customer rose 6.5%. Spend therefore carried more of the month's growth than traffic. The monthly IR news does not say how much of the spend gain came from prices, menu mix or promotions.
Both measures were the strongest in recent months. Customer count had been negative in March (-0.9%) and June (-1.5%) and rose 1.3% in August. Average spend, at 6.5%, was the highest of the nine monthly readings this year, against 2.2% in August. Existing-store sales, at 10.0%, compared with 3.5% in August and were the best since January's 11.7%.
The promotion calendar
The chain's September promotions included its autumn moon-viewing (tsukimi) burger range from 2 September, plus Happy Set toy tie-ins that began on 28 August and 11 September. The release lists these as the month's main topics and does not link them to the sales figures.
For the July to September quarter, existing-store sales rose 6.2%, customer count 1.6% and average spend 4.5%. Over January to September, existing-store sales rose 6.0%, with customer count up 2.2% and average spend up 3.7%. Tokyo Brief reported in August on the chain's same-store sales streak.