McDonald’s Changes Its China Company Name to ‘Golden Arches’ (2024)

FAQs

McDonald’s Changes Its China Company Name to ‘Golden Arches’? ›

On Wednesday, McDonald's confirmed it changed its official name to "Jingongmen," which roughly translates to "Golden Arches." CNN notes some Chinese consumers recognized the company's history and the significance of the arches. But others said "Golden Arches" sounds "rustic" and backward or like a state-owned company.

A McDonald's China spokesperson told Sixth Tone on Thursday that the name change was made to meet “the needs of business development” after the fast food chain sold a bulk of its China and Hong Kong operations to financial conglomerate CITIC Group and American investment company Carlyle Capital in January.

After all, it is a matter of business! McDonald's changed their name in China to "Golden Arches (金色拱门)" in 1986, to appeal to Chinese consumers and to distance itself from any negative connotations associated with the McDonald's brand.

McDonald's is changing their name. But only temporarily. For the time being, McDonald's will take the risky chance of changing their famous “M” to a “W,” and will now be known as WcDonald's all over the United States. It lasted from February 26 to March 18.

Now, the fast food chain has officially changed its Chinese business name from Maidanglao (a literal translation of “McDonald's”) to Jingongmen — or, “Golden Arches.” A seemingly simple change, but as it turns out, renaming a giant foreign company in China is a complex and nuanced art form.

McDonald's

McDonald's China Investment Company / Parent organization

Originally, a carhop drive-in system was used to serve customers. The initial menu items were centered around barbecue and the first name the brothers used for their business was "McDonald's Famous Barbecue." In 1948, the McDonald brothers realized that most of their profits derived from the sale of hamburgers.

The restaurant chain will temporarily change its name to resemble how it appears in anime series, which flip the 'M' for copyright reasons, but the logo remains unmistakable.

While McDonald's dropped the physical arches from nearly all of its restaurants in the 1960s, the Golden Arches have remained in the logo, and as a commonly understood term for the company.

And fortunately for us, it isn't stuck in some gloomy Stranger Things-inspired dimension. Instead, McDonald's is flipping its iconic logo—switching it from "McDonald's" to "WcDonald's"—as an homage to anime.

Who is McDonald's owned by now? ›

The McDonalds Corporation is owned by its thousands of shareholders worldwide. It is managed by its board of directors and president and CEO Steve Easterbrook. Each individual store is owned by the franchisee who opened that particular store. Some franchisees own more than one store.

Not far off Route 66 in San Bernardino is a piece of American business history - the original restaurant of fast-food giant McDonald's. A local fast-food franchise company now owns this site and has turned it into a museum. Not actually part of Route 66 history, this is the site of the first McDonald's.

We got Golden Arches, Don Bistro, McDonald, mcdonte's, Donnie Dons, Mickey d's, MC dank's, MC diddy's, and Rotten Ronnie.

KFC is called 肯德基 (kěn dé jī) in Chinese, which is a transliteration of the brand's English name. The Chinese characters used in the name also have phonetic significance. The first character, 肯 (kěn), sounds similar to the first syllable of “Kentucky,” where KFC was originally founded.

马铃薯 (commonly known as 土豆 in Northeastern China) is the general term for potato. (炸/马铃)薯条 is commonly understood as French fries (hot chips). By default, both 炸 and 马铃 are redundant.

Market share of leading fast food brand restaurants in China 2016-2022. In 2022, KFC continued to be the leading restaurant brand in the limited-service restaurant market in China, with approximately 5.5 percent of the market share. McDonald's and Dicos were another two major market players that year.

The neglect of a famous restaurant like McD to use expired food ingredients caused a huge loss. Such a big losses require mcd to regain consumer trust to the restaurant.

McDonald's is continuing its rapid expansion in China by opening 1,000 new stores this year. Economic troubles in the country have spurred a demand for cheap food options. Even as other brands turn away from manufacturing in China, the fast-food market continues to grow.

Generally where there is a KFC, there is always a McDonald near by. McDonald's had supply problems, their burgers in China are way worse than the USA, and only the McCafe is on par. KFC has much more food choices for Chinese palates, and Yum! brands got into China first.