International Burger King Operations

While Burger King began its foray in to locations outside of the continental United States in 1963 with a store in San Juan, Puerto Rico, it did not have a large international presence. This situation changed shortly after the acquisition when Pillsbury opened its first international restaurant in Windsor, Ontario, Canada in 1969.

Other international locations followed soon after: Oceania in 1971 with Hungry Jack's and Europe in 1975 with a restaurant in Madrid, Spain . Beginning in 1982, BK and its franchisees began operating stores in several East Asian countries, including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea.

Due to high competition, all of the Japanese locations closed by the end of 2001. BK reentered the Japanese market in mid-2007. BK's Central and South American operations began in Mexico in the late 1970s and by the early 1980s in Caracas, Venezuela, Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina. While Burger King lags behind McDonald's in international locations by over 12,000 stores, it has managed to become the largest chain in several countries including Mexico and Spain.

To assist in its international expansion, Burger King has established several subsidiaries to develop strategic partnerships and alliances to expand into new territories; in Europe, Burger King's subsidiary Burger King Europe GmbH is responsible for the licensing and development of BK franchises in the that market, Africa and Western Asia. In Asia, the BK AsiaPac, PTE. Ltd. business unit handles franchising for East Asia, the Asian subcontinent and all Oceanic territories except Australia.

Over the ten year period starting in 2008, Burger King predicted 80% of its market share would be driven by foreign expansion, particularly in the Asia-Pacific and Indian subcontinent regional markets.

While the TPG-lead group has continued BK's international expansion by announcing plans to open new franchise locations in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and Brazil, the company plans to focus on the three largest markets, India, China and Japan.

The company plans to add over 250 stores in these Asian territories, as well as other countries such as Macau, by the end of 2012. Its expansion into the Indian market has the company at a competitive disadvantage with other fast food restaurants such as KFC because the country's large Hindu majority's aversion to beef. BK hopes to use their recent non-beef products, such as their TenderCrisp and TenderGrill sandwiches, as well as other products to help them overcome this hurdle to expand in that country.

At the end of its fiscal 2010 year, Burger King is the second largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants in the world behind industry bellwether McDonald's (32,400 locations) and the fourth largest fast food restaurant chain overall after Yum! Brands (37,000 locations), McDonald's and Subway (32,000 locations).

Sources : wikipedia


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