McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) Led by McRib Sales, FOREX to Weaken Results

McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD) reported good and bad news today, as their sales of the popular McRib sandwich has increased sales figures for the quarter by 4.8 percent, but the foreign exchange will eat into all of that as it weakened to the point of driving down earnings for the quarter by a penny a share said the company. They're now looking at earnings coming in at 2 cents a share.

Same-store sales, measured by those being opened for 13 months or more, has sales increase by 4.9 percent in the U.S. and Europe, and by 2.4 percent in all other regions.

In the U.S., sales were also helped by growing sales of coffee and what are considered other value menu items.

Germany, Russia and France let European sales, with higher-end products leading in those regions, including McWraps, which were strong in the German market especially.

In Asia Australia and China led the way, although Japan weighed on McDonald's, performing weakly. The value menu was the catalyst in Asia, with services like drive-thru and delivery an important part of McDonald's success there.

They were hit particularly hard in Europe with Forex problems, which dragged the performance of the company to flat. Excluding the weak currency environment, McDonald's had a robust sales increase of 7.4 percent.