McDonald''s Rs300 crore expansion plan for India

New Delhi: McDonald''s India, the quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain has announced plans to invest Rs300 crore over the course of the next three years as part of an expansion plan that will see it opening express service restaurants at airports and railway stations, and outlets along highways.

According to Vikram Bakshi, managing director of McDonald''s India for the north and eastern region, the chain is aiming to triple the number of outlets is has within a three to five year time span, at an approximate cost of Rs300 crore. Presently, McDonald''s has 122 outlets in India, and added the 123rd when it opened a restaurant at the Shalimar Bagh area in Delhi.

By 2010, the company would have set up a number of these new outlets, as well as expanded its back-end supply chain to support them.

In India, McDonald''s is a joint-venture company managed by Indian partners. Amit Jatia''s company Hardcastle Restaurants Private Limited owns and manages McDonald''s restaurants in the west. In the north, McDonald''s Restaurants are owned and managed by Vikram Bakshi''s Connaught Plaza Restaurants Private Limited. Both companies either buy or take premises on a long-term arrangement.

McDonald''s has already opened a restaurant in the terminal 1A premises at Delhi''s domestic airport, and has signed an agreement with Indian Railways for starting operations at the old Delhi railway station. For the highway expansion, the company has a tie-up with Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum.

The immediate focus for McDonald''s India will be the metro city airports including those at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, subject to the requisite approvals from the Airports Authority of India.

Including the restaurant at Shalimar Bagh, McDonald''s now has 123 outlets in India, of which 73 are in the northern and eastern regions, and 50 are spread across the southern and western parts of the country.

According to Bakshi, the express outlets would follow a "demand-based pricing strategy", which means that the number of products available will be limited and priced 10-15 per cent higher than the same product across other outlets of the chain.

McDonalds has in recent years customised its offering to local palettes with the inclusion of country specific products such as the McAloo Tikki, McVeggie and Pizza McPuff, which are also available in the Gulf countries that have a significant population Indians living there.