McDonald's is losing ground to rivals like Burger King with a key customer group

Aug 19, 2026 01:29 AM - 1 hour ago 4

Customers participate a McDonald's edifice pinch model posters advertizing meal deals and app savings.

McDonald's is losing crushed to rivals among low-income fast-food diners, according to caller data.

Spending by low-income guests astatine the Golden Arches declined 2.4% year-over-year during the company's latest quarter, said user analytics company Numerator. The patient defines "low-income guests" arsenic those from households making $40,000 aliases little a year.

The driblet is McDonald's first quarterly diminution pinch low-income guests successful the past twelvemonth and amounts to astir $310 cardinal successful mislaid sales, Numerator said connected Tuesday.

Rival fast-food concatenation Burger King, meanwhile, notched a 0.3% summation complete the aforesaid period.

The information is the latest motion that McDonald's is struggling to pull diners, particularly successful a K-shaped economy.

While the concatenation agelong won complete price-conscious diners pinch deals for illustration its buy-one-get-one discount connected sandwiches specified arsenic the Big Mac, it has had issues rolling retired its latest worth menu, which focuses connected items priced $3 aliases less, CEO Chris Kempczinski said connected an net telephone earlier this month.

"Although we've restored our wide worth and affordability leadership, our restaurant-level results show that execution was inconsistent crossed the system," Kempczinski said.

McDonald's comparable US income maturation slowed to 0.8% during its 2nd quarter, the institution said. Rivals from Burger King to casual eating concatenation Chili's person posted stronger results while offering their ain worth menus and deals, Business Insider has reported.

Some McDonald's customers person told Business Insider they're now eating much astatine different chains aliases cooking much astatine home, owed to higher costs.

Despite the company's struggles, immoderate McDonald's offers are still drafting successful diners of each income levels, Numerator found.

The chain's fried pome pie, an aged paper point it brought backmost for America's 250th birthday this summer, has been purchased by 11.7% of US households, Numerator said.

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Alex Bitter is simply a elder unit newsman covering the gig economy, food, and retail. His activity focuses awesome gig transportation and ride-hailing apps, including Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Walmart's Spark. He is willing successful everything from what it's for illustration to activity connected the apps to the companies' business strategies.Some of his caller stories characteristic gig workers who person been deactivated connected the apps, DoorDash hiring accepted employees to make deliveries, gig workers' usage of bots, and gig activity expanding into caller professions, specified arsenic nursing.Alex has besides written astir Aldi's US description , Starbucks' turnaround efforts, and the fallout from Kraft-Heinz's fund cutting. Convenience shop concatenation Sheetz ended its "smile policy" aft his reporting.Before joining Insider successful September 2020, he wrote astir user and unit companies for S&P Global Market Intelligence. He's a postgraduate of the University of Hawai'i astatine Mānoa and grew up connected the Big Island.Alex lives successful the Washington, DC, area, wherever you tin find him studying ancient coins aliases searching for Civil War artifacts pinch his metallic detector successful his free time.Got a tip? Reach retired astatine [email protected] aliases via encrypted messaging app Signal astatine +1 (808) 854-4501.