Where Is Jollibee in the List of Top Fast-Food Chains in the World?

Photo by Warren Espejo.

It’s no secret how the Jollibee Group’s ultimate goal is to become one of the world’s top global food brands. In fact, the homegrown company has made it its mission to break through the top 5 of the world’s top restaurant chains. The pandemic has obviously thrown a wrench in those plans, but Jollibee Foods Corp. is still steadfast in achieving that goal.

“We continue to dream big, and despite the changes brought by the pandemic, our vision remains unchanged: to become one of the top five restaurant companies in the world by serving great tasting food and bringing the joy of eating to everyone,” JFC President Ernesto Tanmantiong told Esquire Philippines in a rare interview for our 10th anniversary Man At His Best special feature. “Towards this, we did not just aim for recovery, but pushed for expansion.”

But competing in a very crowded market, Jollibee clearly has its work cut out for it. In the list of world’s top fast-food chains by number of locations, the ‘Bee is currently at 15th place in the latest rankings by Wikepedia based on the companies's submitted annual reports. It’s the only non-American company in the top 15, and one of only three that’s not from the U.S. in the top 20.

With nearly 40,000 stores and growing, Jollibee’s rival McDonald’s is the world’s most popular fast-food chain of 2021, overtaking Subway, which had to close down hundreds of stores during the pandemic. The sandwich company slid to second place with over 37,540 stores, while coffee chain Starbucks is at third place with about 32,660 branches. 

At fourth place is KFC, followed by Burger King, Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Dunkin’, Hunt Brothers Pizza and Taco Bell in the Top 10. 

Taco Bell, Wendy’s, and Baskin Robbins are just ahead of Jollibee at 11th to 14th place. But the ‘Bee is already ahead of other familiar multinational food chains like Orange Julius, Papa John’s Pizza, Canada’s Tim Hortons, Dairy Queen, and Little Caesar’s.

With most, if not all, of these companies on a recovery and expansion trajectory after the challenges brought on by the pandemic, it would be interesting to see what this list will look like one year from now. Who knows, we might even see Jollibee break into the top 10 global food companies next year.