Day 258 - 07 Jun 96 - Page 30
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, Mr. Fairgrieve?
3 A. I think the figure that Mr. Preston was referring to
4 was a figure of 93 per cent, and it is a figure that is
5 kind of separate to the, is not really relevant to the,
6 analysis we have been talking about, and it relates to
7 'ever visited' penetration. It means during the life of
8 the person have they visited McDonald's at some point. The
9 reason why it is relevant for us to know is that, as I have
10 said previously, mainly due to life stages people tend to
11 drop out of McDonald's usage at certain life stages -- or
12 certain levels of McDonald's usage -- so across the
13 population who eat out over time 93 per cent of the
14 population have visited McDonald's at some point during
15 their life, and that is a figure that we collect regularly
16 on AF2.
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18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Right. The other thing which I think
19 -- (to Miss Steel) You can come back in a moment. Better
20 that I ask than anyone else in the light of the conflict we
21 have had. For how long of the time you have been working
22 with McDonald's has it been of some relevance to have an
23 idea of what proportion of the population use McDonald's?
24 A. It has been--
25
26 Q. In any given year?
27 A. It has been very relevant and necessary for us as a
28 business to know that.
29
30 Q. What sort of ball park figure has been in your mind for
31 that user over the years?
32 A. Can you just clarify the question again?
33
34 Q. What proportion of the population, the 56.6 million as it
35 is now, will go into McDonald's this year, 1996, or would
36 have gone into a McDonald's in 1990 -- by 'going to',
37 I include pulling up in the car and ordering a meal as
38 well. I do not want you to give me an exact percentage but
39 in sort of tenths, quarters, thirds, whatever?
40 A. It is difficult to give a direct answer on that
41 question because the indicators that we use within the
42 business are slightly different. So the indicators that we
43 would use on an on-going basis are, firstly, our share of
44 the burgerhouse market, as the market within which we
45 operate, which is currently round about 70 per cent.
46 Secondly, going into the slightly wider universe, I think
47 it is something like 13 to 15 per cent of the quick service
48 restaurant market, and finally something like 8 per cent of
49 the total eating out market. Those are one set of criteria
50 we use on-going.
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52 The rest of the criteria that we use come from AF2, and the
53 number that we would look at on-going is last four weeks
54 penetration. I think McDonald's last 4 week penetration in
55 the UK on-going is round about 50 per cent of informal
56 eating out. Those are the indicators we consider valuable
57 and use on a fairly regular basis. That is what we need to
58 know in our business.
59
60 Q. So you cannot begin to give any reliable figure of what
