✦ Loyalty at 250 MillionNarrow moat

The most underrated asset McDonald's has built this decade is a list. What began as an American rewards app in 2020 reached nearly 210 million ninety-day active users across more than 70 markets by the end of 2025, generating around $40 billion in systemwide sales — roughly double the 2023 figure — with management targeting 250 million members and $45 billion of loyalty sales by the end of 2027¹.

Put that in context: a ninety-day active file of 250 million people would be one of the largest identified consumer relationships on earth, and it changes what McDonald's can do about its central problem. The company's pressure point is value — a consumer who feels priced out — and a blunt price cut costs margin on every customer, including the ones who would have paid. Targeted offers do not: they discount only where a discount changes behaviour. Loyalty is how a company defends traffic without surrendering the price list.

The catch is that a member is not a habit. Active-user counts flatter easily — a single deep offer buys a lot of ninety-day actives — and the industry's loyalty programs have a long record of training customers to wait for coupons rather than to visit more. So watch the ratio, not the headline: loyalty systemwide sales per active member, and whether comparable sales improve as the file grows. Members climbing while comps flatten would mean the program is buying transactions it already had.