Related Articles
Top Stories
May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
Chicago - McDonald's Corp said Friday its first-quarter profit fell 14% due largely to a sizable tax benefit it received in the same period a year ago. It was the fast-food chain's biggest quarterly earnings drop since 2002.
The results were in line with a preliminary announcement by the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company last week.
Despite lower income, the results showed a continuation of the momentum McDonald's has built up over the last three years, particularly in its US restaurants, thanks to a series of successful new products, extended hours, restaurant renovations and allowing customers to pay with credit and debit cards.
It said sales have now risen 35 months in a row at restaurants open at least 13 months.
Net income was $625.3m, or 49 cents per share for the three months ended March 31. That compared with $727.9m, or 56 cents per share, a year earlier when results were boosted by several one-time items, most notably a favorable audit settlement of the company's 2000-2002 US tax returns that added 13 cents per share.
The per-share earnings matched the consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, which was affirmed by McDonald's in an April 13 announcement.
Revenue was $5.1bn, up 6% from $4.8bn and slightly more than analysts' consensus estimate of $5.04bn.
The year-over-year earnings decline was McDonald's largest since the fourth quarter of 2002, when it posted a net loss of $344 million - its first ever as a publicly traded company.