McDonald's first Vietnamese branch serves more than 400,000 customers in its first month of business, says company's local partner in nation

Nevin Barich

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam , March 18, 2014 (Bloomberg LP) – McDonald’s Corp.’s first Vietnamese branch served more than 400,000 customers in its first month of business, according to the company’s local partner in the Southeast Asian nation.

The first outlet in Vietnam of the world’s largest restaurant chain opened Feb. 8 in Ho Chi Minh City. About 22,500 customers were served during the first 24 hours of operation, said Henry Nguyen, owner of Good Day Hospitality, which operates McDonald’s in Vietnam under a franchise arrangement.

The first month’s number of customers served exceeded “even what we thought were pretty high expectations,” Nguyen said at an investment conference today in Ho Chi Minh City, without giving a figure for initial targets. The restaurant sold 61,980 Big Macs in its first 30 days of business, Nguyen said.

The second outlet in the country also will be in Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen said.

U.S. fast-food restaurants that have opened in Vietnam since 2010 include Burger King Worldwide Inc., CKE Inc.’s Carl’s Jr., Domino’s Pizza Inc., Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Inc., and Subway. Yum! Brands Inc.’s KFC has been in the country since 1997.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Jason Folkmanis in Ho Chi Minh City at folkmanis@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lars Klemming at lklemming@bloomberg.net Dick Schumacher

* All content is copyrighted by Industry Intelligence, or the original respective author or source. You may not recirculate, redistrubte or publish the analysis and presentation included in the service without Industry Intelligence's prior written consent. Please review our terms of use.