An Animated Chart Of The Biggest Fast Food Franchises In The World In The Past 50 Years

In the world of fast-food chains, which franchise reigns supreme when it comes to the number of stores worldwide? And how have those numbers fluctuated for the past few decades?

Using data from WorldAtlas, Flourish user u/Mustafijur put together this animation that shows which fast-food chains had the most stores from 1971 to 2019. For a full-sized view of the animation, see here.

While KFC had the most stores worldwide at the beginning of the 1970s, McDonald's surpassed its numbers in 1976. The gap between McDonald's and other franchises grew as the chain amassed more than 10,000 stores worldwide in the early 90s and just kept on growing at a breakneck pace.

As you can see from the data viz, McDonald's long reign only ended in 2010 when the number of Subway stores overtook McDonald's by a thin margin, 31,960 to McDonald's 31,396. Since then, Subway has held on to its place as the world's largest fast food chain by number of stores. In 2019, Subway had 42,431 stores worldwide, while in second and third place, respectively, McDonald's had 37,200 and Starbucks had 28,218.

[Via Reddit]