McDonald’s restaurants in multiple countries including the UK and Australia have been hit by a “technology outage”, as the fast food chain denied it had been hit by a cybersecurity attack.
Services in Australia, the UK, Japan and China have been affected, with unconfirmed reports of problems elsewhere, with restaurant, drive-through and online orders affected.
A global spokesperson for McDonald’s said the company was working to resolve the unspecified problem.
“We are aware of a technology outage, which impacted our restaurants; the issue is now being resolved. We thank customers for their patience and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. Notably, the issue is not related to a cybersecurity event,” the spokesperson said.
A UK spokesperson for McDonald’s said the outage affecting restaurants had been “resolved” in the UK and Ireland. In the UK, the Downdetector site, which flags outages on apps, reported more than 600 outages on the app on Friday morning with a spike at about 7am.
In a post to X, a customer in Australia said it was “impossible to buy anything” via drive-through or online.
A McDonald’s spokesperson in Australia said the issue was “currently impacting our restaurants nationwide”.
The problem was also hitting Japan, with McDonald’s Japan’s X account confirming there was a “system failure” impacting stores.
“We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and ask that you please wait for a while until the service is restored,” a translation of the social media post read.
【お知らせ】
現在、システム障害が発生しております。
お客様にはご迷惑をおかけいたしますが、復旧まで今しばらくお待ちください。— マクドナルド (@McDonaldsJapan) March 15, 2024
Many McDonald’s outlets in Japan stopped taking in-person and mobile customer orders because of a system disruption, according to a spokesperson for McDonald’s in Japan. McDonald’s has almost 3,000 outlets in the country.
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In China, the hashtag “McDonald’s collapsed” was the fifth most popular search term on the country’s Weibo social media platform on Friday afternoon.
McDonald’s is one of the most popular western fast food chains in China, with more than 5,000 stores. However it’s main rival, KFC, has nearly double that number.
McDonald’s posted an update on Weibo on Friday saying that the problem had been fixed, adding: “Love having you back!” But several people commented that they had already bought a KFC meal instead.
In Hong Kong, the McDonald’s Facebook page said self-ordering kiosks and mobile phone orders were “not functioning” and asked customers to order at the restaurant counter.
There were also unconfirmed reports from social media users of problems in Germany and New Zealand, as well as news reports of problems in Sweden.
