Friday, 1 August 2014

Burger King to open stores in India

Burger King is a global chain of Hamburger Fast Food Restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King. Its two Miami based franchises, David Edgerton and James McLamore, purchased the company, and named it Burger King. The company became public in 2002 and it had over 13000 outlets in 79 countries. In 2010, 3G Capital of Brazil acquired a majority stake in BK in a deal valued at US $3.26 Billion.

In recent news, Burger King will open its first few outlets in India by the end of this year. Company aims to make India, along with China, its biggest market in Asia-Pacific. The outlets will come up in Mumbai and NCR. Coming at a time when rivals like McDonald’s, Domino’s and Yum brand have established a long lead here. Burger King will look to penetrate the untapped smaller towns to gain a toehold in the market. China and India will be two growth engines for the company.

Burger King has a joint venture with Everstone group; a Singapore based private equity and real estate group, to open a few hundred stores in next ten years in India. Burger king formed a joint venture in 2012 to open 1000 restaurants in China by 2015. It recently started selling burgers in Pakistan and Brunei.


Currently, almost 40% of the western fast-food market by value sales lies between Delhi NCR and Greater Mumbai. Burger King and Everstone may look to sub-franchise the brand for airport and railway retailing at a later stage. While Burger King offers vegetarian burgers and spicy bean burgers in UK and Canada, it will unveil a segregated vegetarian menu in India. Nearly two-thirds of Indians now eat out at least once a week, boosting the growth of restaurant industry, which is expected to touch $26 Billion in 2015.

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