McDonald's sales in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APMEA) regions declined 8.3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter partially due to negative performance in China, according to the company's latest quarterly report released on Wednesday (US time).
The company's overall revenues reached $5.96 billion during the quarter, down 11 percent from the previous year, according to the report.
McDonald's reported that its global quarterly sales decreased 2.3 percent year-on-year, reflecting negative customer traffic in all major segments.
The company said its sales during the quarter decreased 2.6 percent year-on-year in the US and fell 0.6 percent in the EU from the previous year.
Accelerated sales decline in APMEA was in part "due to negative but improving performance in China," the company noted in the financial report.
Analysts said the decline is also because the dining industry in China, its major market, is performing tepidly amid the economic slowdown.
"McDonald's is not the only food chain that has seen declining sales in China," Ma Wenfeng, a food analyst from Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Co, told the Global Times Thursday.
McDonald's major rival Yum! Brands Inc, which runs the KFC and Pizza Hut fast food chains in China, also reported that its sales in the country decreased 12 percent in the first quarter, according to its financial report released on Tuesday.
Hong Kong-listed noodle chain Ajisen (China) Holdings Ltd's sales dropped 1.6 percent in China, according to its quarterly report filed on April 14.
Ma also noted that the negative performance in China also indicates that McDonald's has yet to recover from a food supplier scandal that erupted in China in July 2014.
McDonald's did not reveal anything new about the scandal in China in its latest quarterly report but the company noted in its 2014 annual earnings filing that a supplier to McDonald's in China negatively impacted the company's operation in the nation, Japan and certain other markets.
McDonald's failed to reply to the Global Times e-mail inquiries by press time.
Besides the impact of the food scandal, McDonald's and other foreign fast food chains are being adversely affected by the trend of Chinese customers losing their appetite for Western fast food, Zhou Mingjun, an analyst from Shenzhen-based ASKCI Consulting Co, told the Global Times Thursday.
"As some restaurants also start to provide fast food in the Chinese style, they have become McDonald's emerging rivals in the market," Zhou said.
Zhou also noted that McDonald's should slow down its expansion in China, focusing more on quality rather than on quantity.
