As we said in our sales preview, “MCD FACING TOPLINE PRESSURE” (02/26/10), MCD had easy comparisons across the board for all segments. This was especially true in APMEA because of the Chinese New Year calendar shift. As expected, the headline numbers appear better than the underlying trends actually are. As we rated the potential range of sales trends for MCD in February, all of the trends were in line with can be viewed as BAD; all regions showed a slowing in 2-year trends. On a sequential basis, 2-year average trends slowed in the USA by 65 bps, Europe by 310 bps and AMPEA by 165 bps. Given current trends, the next two months pose very difficult comparisons for MCD.
Howard Penney
Managing Director