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McDonald's (MCD) Competitors

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$313.68 +1.82 (+0.58%)
Closing price 05/30/2025 03:59 PM Eastern
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$314.33 +0.65 (+0.21%)
As of 05/30/2025 07:55 PM Eastern
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MCD vs. SBUX, CMG, YUM, DRI, DPZ, TXRH, EAT, CAKE, WEN, and PZZA

Should you be buying McDonald's stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of McDonald's include Starbucks (SBUX), Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG), Yum! Brands (YUM), Darden Restaurants (DRI), Domino's Pizza (DPZ), Texas Roadhouse (TXRH), Brinker International (EAT), Cheesecake Factory (CAKE), Wendy's (WEN), and Papa Johns International (PZZA). These companies are all part of the "restaurants" industry.

McDonald's vs.

Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) and McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) are both large-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their community ranking, dividends, profitability, media sentiment, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.

In the previous week, McDonald's had 11 more articles in the media than Starbucks. MarketBeat recorded 88 mentions for McDonald's and 77 mentions for Starbucks. McDonald's' average media sentiment score of 1.01 beat Starbucks' score of 0.84 indicating that McDonald's is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company Very Positive Positive Neutral Negative Very Negative Overall Sentiment
Starbucks
40 Very Positive mention(s)
10 Positive mention(s)
17 Neutral mention(s)
5 Negative mention(s)
1 Very Negative mention(s)
Positive
McDonald's
60 Very Positive mention(s)
6 Positive mention(s)
15 Neutral mention(s)
2 Negative mention(s)
5 Very Negative mention(s)
Positive

McDonald's has a net margin of 31.73% compared to Starbucks' net margin of 9.73%. Starbucks' return on equity of -44.97% beat McDonald's' return on equity.

Company Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets
Starbucks9.73% -44.97% 11.47%
McDonald's 31.73%-181.63%15.48%

Starbucks currently has a consensus price target of $97.92, indicating a potential upside of 17.02%. McDonald's has a consensus price target of $325.91, indicating a potential upside of 3.90%. Given Starbucks' higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Starbucks is more favorable than McDonald's.

Company Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score
Starbucks
2 Sell rating(s)
13 Hold rating(s)
13 Buy rating(s)
0 Strong Buy rating(s)
2.39
McDonald's
0 Sell rating(s)
12 Hold rating(s)
16 Buy rating(s)
0 Strong Buy rating(s)
2.57

McDonald's has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Starbucks. McDonald's is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Starbucks, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

CompanyGross RevenuePrice/Sales RatioNet IncomeEarnings Per SharePrice/Earnings Ratio
Starbucks$36.35B2.62$3.76B$2.7630.32
McDonald's$25.71B8.73$8.22B$11.3327.69

Starbucks pays an annual dividend of $2.44 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.9%. McDonald's pays an annual dividend of $7.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Starbucks pays out 88.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. McDonald's pays out 62.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Starbucks has increased its dividend for 15 consecutive years and McDonald's has increased its dividend for 49 consecutive years.

Starbucks has a beta of 0.99, indicating that its stock price is 1% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, McDonald's has a beta of 0.57, indicating that its stock price is 43% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Starbucks received 33 more outperform votes than McDonald's when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 76.04% of users gave Starbucks an outperform vote while only 71.82% of users gave McDonald's an outperform vote.

CompanyUnderperformOutperform
StarbucksOutperform Votes
2123
76.04%
Underperform Votes
669
23.96%
McDonald'sOutperform Votes
2090
71.82%
Underperform Votes
820
28.18%

72.3% of Starbucks shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 70.3% of McDonald's shares are held by institutional investors. 0.1% of Starbucks shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of McDonald's shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

McDonald's beats Starbucks on 13 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.

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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time

This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding {thisCompany.Symbol} and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
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Media Sentiment Over Time

This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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MCD vs. The Competition

MetricMcDonald'sEating places IndustryRetail SectorNYSE Exchange
Market Cap$224.29B$9.08B$25.06B$19.49B
Dividend Yield2.25%3.97%169.91%3.89%
P/E Ratio27.5426.6424.6634.81
Price / Sales8.731.904.4339.19
Price / Cash22.9919.1719.4117.51
Price / Book-59.185.886.154.74
Net Income$8.22B$318.00M$784.05M$1.02B
7 Day Performance-0.31%2.92%1.45%1.30%
1 Month Performance0.00%4.63%7.79%4.79%
1 Year Performance21.16%-7.08%11.59%5.33%

McDonald's Competitors List

CompanyMarketRankShare PriceAnalysts' Price Target1Y Price PerformanceMarket CapRevenueP/E RatioEmployee CountIndicator(s)
MCD
McDonald's
4.373 of 5 stars
$313.68
+0.6%
$325.91
+3.9%
+21.1%$224.29B$25.71B27.54150,000Trending News
SBUX
Starbucks
4.5094 of 5 stars
$84.40
+0.5%
$98.72
+17.0%
+4.3%$95.91B$36.35B27.23402,000Trending News
Analyst Forecast
Short Interest ↑
CMG
Chipotle Mexican Grill
4.1499 of 5 stars
$50.67
-0.2%
$61.74
+21.9%
-19.7%$68.27B$11.49B45.64105,000Positive News
Analyst Forecast
YUM
Yum! Brands
4.0319 of 5 stars
$145.47
0.0%
$156.70
+7.7%
+4.6%$40.44B$7.74B27.8736,000Ex-Dividend
DRI
Darden Restaurants
4.6602 of 5 stars
$204.16
+0.1%
$201.38
-1.4%
+42.5%$23.89B$11.76B23.39179,000News Coverage
Positive News
Short Interest ↓
DPZ
Domino's Pizza
2.8333 of 5 stars
$480.43
-0.4%
$498.50
+3.8%
-7.0%$16.45B$4.73B29.5111,000Positive News
TXRH
Texas Roadhouse
3.5203 of 5 stars
$189.99
+0.7%
$191.62
+0.9%
+12.8%$12.60B$5.50B29.3682,000Positive News
EAT
Brinker International
3.3598 of 5 stars
$154.64
+3.8%
$141.14
-8.7%
+144.8%$6.87B$5.13B26.8062,000Positive News
CAKE
Cheesecake Factory
3.9616 of 5 stars
$52.58
+0.4%
$54.00
+2.7%
+42.1%$2.60B$3.62B16.4347,500Trending News
Insider Trade
WEN
Wendy's
4.946 of 5 stars
$11.44
-0.5%
$16.34
+42.9%
-34.9%$2.20B$2.24B12.0414,500Trending News
Options Volume
PZZA
Papa Johns International
3.1194 of 5 stars
$42.25
-0.7%
$51.25
+21.3%
-2.7%$1.38B$2.06B14.7212,000News Coverage

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This page (NYSE:MCD) was last updated on 6/1/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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