McDonald's suffers global tech outage

The giant fast food chain McDonald's experienced system difficulties in several countries, forcing the closure of some of its locations for extended periods of time. However, the company has ruled out cybersecurity threats as a possible source of the issue.  

The American company claimed that Friday's "technology outage" had an impact on operations at its locations across the globe, including those in Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom. 

"Operations are temporarily out at many of our stores nationwide," McDonald's Japan said on X, referring to the situation as a "system failure."  

The owner of multiple McDonald's locations in central Sweden, Patrik Hjelte, stated to the local daily Nya WermlandsTidningen that the problem with the brand is that all of its "restaurants are connected to a global network."  

It was not immediately clear how many stores were affected globally. 

Outage tracking website Downdetector reported a spike in problems with the McDonald’s app, while media outlets reported that customers from Australia to the UK had complained of issues with ordering. 

The fast food chain has about 40,000 restaurants worldwide, with more than 14,000 stores in the US. 

In February, it reported that it had missed its first quarterly sales target in nearly four years, citing Israel’s war on Gaza as a factor. 

The slump came after customers in Muslim-majority countries called for a boycott of the chain in response to its Israeli franchisee donating thousands of free meals to the Israeli military. 

Earlier this month, Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram also faced technical issues that disrupted global services for hundreds of thousands of users for more than two hours.