Chinese McDonald's Aim at KFC

You can visit Ronald McDonald at 800 restaurants across China, but the Colonel will feed you at a whopping 1,940 KFC locations. So McDonald's is starting the engine on a new campaign to overcome the Chinese cultural bias for poultry over beef: Unable to compete in sheer number of outlets, the company is pioneering drive-throughs.

KFC may be so attuned to its Eastern clientele that it serves a rice porridge dish, but Yum brands—which owns KFC and also Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, and opens one store per day in the Communist country—has only 10 car-friendly locations. McDonalds will bring the feature to half of the 125 stores opening next year, many of which will test out another Chinese novelty—24-hour service. (More China stories.)