(Yicai) July 17 -- McDonald’s is planning to expand its footprint further in China, aiming to ramp up its restaurant count over the next four years with a special focus on lower-tier cities.

“By 2028, the number of McDonald’s restaurants in China will exceed 10,000,” Zhang Jiayin, chief executive of the US fast food giant’s China business, said at a company event yesterday.

McDonald’s has more than 6,000 outlets in the country now, more than twice the number it had in 2017. It also has over 200,000 employees, more than 65 percent of whom are young people born after 1995. The chain has 500 eateries in Shanghai alone, with nearly 13,000 staff.

McDonald’s entered the Chinese market in 1990 and in 2017 Citic Consortium became the controlling shareholder of McDonald’s China, by which time the Asian country was also McDonald’s biggest market for international franchise development.

Yicai learned that as part of its expansion plans, McDonald’s will be moving increasingly into lower-tier cities in China. Before Citic, McDonald’s focused mainly on first- and second-tier cities. Now, about half of its branches are located in third-, fourth- and even fifth-tier cities. 

The company is still playing catch-up to main rival KFC, which had in excess of 10,000 stores in China as of last December. The fried chicken chain aims to grow its market in China by over 50 percent to 700 million consumers.

Editor: Tom Litting