McDonald’s Philippines opening 75 stores this year

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March 31, 2026 | 12:00am

Eyes 1,000-branch milestone in 2028

MANILA, Philippines — There is no stopping the aggressive expansion of McDonald’s Philippines as it moves toward reaching its 1,000th store milestone by 2028, with the aim of providing more job opportunities for Filipinos nationwide.

After adding 72 stores to its network in 2025, McDonald’s Philippines is looking to open 75 new stores nationwide this year, its managing director Margot Torres told The STAR.

“For us, growth is not just about expanding the business, it is really about offering opportunities to Filipinos in the communities that we enter,” Torres said.

“We light the way through career opportunities. Typically, when we open a store that’s 80 to 100 new jobs and we opened more than 70 stores last year. And we will continue to aggressively open,” she said.

Since opening its first store in Morayta, Manila in 1981, McDonald’s Philippines has grown its network to more than 850 stores nationwide with a 70,000-strong workforce.

More than 50 percent of the stores are company-owned and operated, while the rest are being run by over 100 franchisees.

As part of its growth plans, Torres said the company is targeting to hit the 1,000th-store milestone by 2028.

McDonald’s Philippines is currently the 10th largest market for McDonald’s globally in terms of number of stores.

In Asia, it is number three, behind China which is the largest with more than 7,700 stores and Japan with about 3,500.

“McDonalds has built a brand to be part of Filipinos’ everyday lives for the past 45 years and really be part of culture because we have meaningful connections in the communities where we operate,” Torres said.

“There is a vision we crafted and it is to be the loved and admired QSR (quick-service restaurant) brand. We aim to be loved as a brand. We want to form strong, long lasting bonds with our customers. We are going for not just being loved, but being admired because that’s not built overnight, you have to be consistent to earn respect, trust and admiration,” she said.

Before the pandemic, Torres said McDonald’s Philippines has already invested in what the company calls as its next-gen stores.

“You’ll probably see most of our stores that way already today. More than 90 percent already have self-ordering kiosks so you don’t talk to a crew anymore. We have cashless payments, customer WiFi and lots of the technology-enabled services we can offer our consumers. These all happened before pandemic,” she said.

Torres also proudly said that since 1981, McDonald’s Philippines has never done contractual hiring.

“That is the commitment of George Yang and Kenneth Yang continues this,” she said.

Last year, Illinois-based fast food behemoth McDonald’s Corp. entered into a multi-unit franchise agreement with Golden Arches Development Corp. (GADC), also known as McDonald’s Philippines, its chairman and founder George Yang and president and CEO Kenneth Yang, for a new 20-year franchise term in the Philippines.

George Yang has held the master franchise since the opening of the first McDonald’s store in 1981.

In 2005, McDonald’s Philippines became a 100 percent Filipino-owned company with George and Kenneth as its majority owners and Alliance Global Group Inc. of tycoon Andrew Tan as its investment partner.