The shares of McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) are trading higher today after reporting its fourth-quarter 2015 financial results showing its best quarterly sales growth over the past four years.
The stock price of the largest burger chain operator climbed 1.54% to $120.22 per share at the time of this writing, around 1:30 in the afternoon in New York.
McDonald’s fourth quarter results
According to McDonald’s its global comparable sales for the fourth quarter increased 5%, higher than the 3.2% growth expected by Wall Street analysts. The company’s sales growth was driven by its all- day breakfast offering in the United States, which was started in August.
Jennifer Bartashus of Bloomberg Intelligence, commented, “It looks like they’re definitely under way with the turnaround. A good chunk of it is the all-day breakfast.”
McDonald’s said its comparable sales in the United States rose 5.7% and its international lead segment climbed 4.2% during the quarter. The largest burger chain operator said its comparable sales in high growth markets increased 3% and foundational markets increased 5.9%.
McDonald’s reported earnings of $1.31 per share, up by 16% from $1.13 per share in the same period in 2014. The company’s revene declined 4% from $6.57 billion to $6.34 billion.
For the fiscal 2015, the company generated earnings of $4.80 per share on $25.41 billion in revenue.
Foreign currency translation negatively impacted the company’s diluted earnings by $0.11 per share for the quarter and $0.50 per share for the year, according to the company.
McDonald’s returned $2.3 billion to shareholders
In a statement, McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook said, “We took bold, urgent action in 2015 to reset the business and position McDonald’s to deliver sustained profitable growth. We ended the year with momentum, including positive comparable sales across all segments for both the quarter and the year – a testament to the swift changes we made and the early impact of our turnaround efforts.”
Mr. Easterbrook added, “We enter 2016 committed to managing the business for the long term and aligned as a System around the critical imperative that we must run great restaurants each and every day for our valued customers.”
During the fourth quarter, McDonald’s returned $2.3 billion to shareholders through shares buy back and dividend. The company returned total of $9.4 billion to shareholders for the full year.
